Human Trafficking and Security in Southern Africa

The South African and Mozambican Experience

Richard Obinna Iroanya

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9783319719870
• eBook ISBN: 9783319719887
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

This book investigates the links between human trafficking and national security in Southern Africa. Human trafficking violates borders, supports organised crime and corrupts border officials, and yet policymakers rarely view the persistence of human trafficking as a security issue. Adopting an expanded conceptualisation of security to encompass the individual as well as the state, Richard Obinna Iroanya lays the groundwork for understanding human trafficking as a security threat. He outlines the conditions and patterns of human trafficking globally before moving into detailed case studies of South Africa and Mozambique. Together, these case studies bring into focus the lives of the 'hidden population' in the region, with analysis and policy recommendations for combating a global phenomenon.

© The Author(s) 2018

Richard Obinna IroanyaHuman Trafficking and Security in Southern AfricaAfrican Histories and Modernitieshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71988-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Richard Obinna Iroanya¹

(1)

Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

End Abstract

The crime of human trafficking is real. The existence of international, regional and national anti-trafficking legislation and successful prosecutions in several countries proves the reality of the crime, especially in the Southern African context. Yet the extent of human trafficking occurrence globally and on the Southern African continent specifically remains largely unknown. Different organisations, such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC ), have been collecting data on the patterns and trends of human trafficking from official, national criminal justice sources since 2003. Based on the UNODC’s 2016 report, a total of 63,251 human trafficking victims were detected in 106 countries and territories between 2012 and 2014. Adult women and girls comprised some 70% of the total number of detected victims. With specific reference to Africa, the most recent estimate by the International Labour Organisation (ILO ) claims that 3.7 million Africans may be victims of human trafficking (ILO 2014). However, estimated numbers do not always match with actual available statistics based on the number of reported cases, arrests and convictions of offenders and rescued victims in the region. Statistics provided by the US State Department in its 2017 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, shows that 1251 alleged human traffickers were prosecuted in Africa in 2017. Of this number, 1119 people were convicted of human trafficking offences. Additionally, about 18,296 human trafficking victims of African origin were identified globally (US State Department 2017).

In the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region, about 989 human trafficking cases were reported, investigated and prosecuted between 2008 and 2015. This figure is derived from SADC’s 2016 baseline report on trafficking in people in the region. The data provided by SADC could be much higher as data for Angola , Botswana , Democratic Republic of Congo, Seychelles , Zambia and Zimbabwe were not included in the report for different reasons, including the newness of anti-trafficking legislation . Contradictions, exist, however, when the SADC report is examined in the light of the US State Department’s yearly TIP report. The latter for 2017 shows that about 1020 human trafficking cases were reported in the SADC region between 2015 and 2017.

Discrepancies existing in the number of human trafficking cases that are reported by different agencies emanate from the fact that the concept of trafficking is often used to describe different criminal activities such as sexual violence and smuggling , but this may not always be the case. While some consider human trafficking to be a part of smuggling , others equate it with kidnap. Although it does appear that people kidnapping , trafficking and smuggling are sometimes used synonymously in the literature, they can be conceptually differentiated (SADC 2016; Frankel 2016; Kempadoo 2000; IOM 2003). Distinction between the terms are made using four criteria, namely, consent , exploitation , transnationality and source of profit. While smuggled people in most cases consent to being smuggled into another country, trafficked victims in most cases do not consent to being trafficked. Exploitation of trafficking victims continues even after arrival at their destinations, while the exploitation of those who are smuggled in most cases ends with the arrival of victims at their destinations. While people trafficking and smuggling are mostly transnational in nature, trafficking may in some cases, be entirely domestic. People smugglers profit mainly from transportation of their victims to their destinations, while human traffickers profit from continuous exploitation of their victims in their destination countries.

Kidnapping is described as the forceful procurement of people for financial, sexual and other exploitations. Unlike trafficking and smuggling , which in some cases may involve the consent of victims, those who are kidnapped are held against their will. Kidnappers profit from demanding ransom from the state, organisations or relatives of their victims. In many cases victims are released after the payment of ransom. However, there are extreme cases in which victims are killed even after a ransom has been paid. Kidnapping is mainly domestic, but can also be international. Importantly too, kidnapping may be politically motivated, being used, for example, as part of a broader strategy of terror by a non-state actor that is engaged in political contestation with a legitimate government to obtain concessions from the state. In this case, kidnapping may not necessarily involve financial gain (Iroanya 2014; Wilkinson 2000, 13).

Globally, human trafficking is not a completely new phenomenon. It has an extensive history and arguably may be traced back to the time when slavery was more prevalent. Earlier discourses on human trafficking associated it mainly with women (white women), children and prostitution (Barry 1995): the term ‘white slavery ’ was widely used to describe ‘the procurement, by force, deceit, or drugs, of a white woman or girl against her will, for prostitution’ (Doezema 2000; Grittner 1990). Though the emphasis was placed on white women, this does not imply the absence of trafficking of white men for sexual exploitation or for forced labour. Neither does it imply the absence of trafficking of men and women of other races for sexual exploitation or for other purposes during those times. Africans, for example, experienced the Arab and the transatlantic slave trades, which bore all characteristics of human trafficking. Those who equate human trafficking with slavery can therefore go beyond the white slavery period in establishing the historical roots of the crime. In Southern Africa, the history of human trafficking dates back to slavery and colonial times, as will be shown in this book.

Different manifestations of the phenomenon of human trafficking are identifiable from research reports and publications by international institutions, governments, researchers and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Based on several sources, human trafficking in Southern Africa takes the following identifiable forms (SADC 2016; Martens 2003, 1):

• child trafficking for farm and domestic labour exploitation across countries;
• trafficking of women and men for sexual exploitation within the region, particularly in South Africa;
• trafficking of women to outside the region for sexual exploitation; and
• trafficking of women from outside Africa to Southern Africa for sexual exploitation.

The increase in different forms of human trafficking in Southern Africa has been attributed to several push and pull factors. One of these is the history of political instability in the region, as well as globalisation , poor economic development and the existence of local and international trafficking syndicates. Despite the existence of human trafficking in Southern Africa since slavery and colonial times, trafficking is not often viewed as a security issue by the region’s states. The most plausible explanation could be that policymakers do not explicitly consider human trafficking to pose an ‘existential threat’ (Buzan et al. 1998, 21) to the states, governments, territories and societies in the region. Such reasoning is narrow, state-centric and reductionist because it tends to ignore the expansion of the security sphere and fails to properly situate people as the foundation of states. This partially explains the reluctance of some countries to fully prioritise the combating of human trafficking. It may be acknowledged, though, that certain national and international policy measures are in place to combat human trafficking. These view the phenomenon more as a socio-political rather than a security issue. Human trafficking is not always seen as part of organised crime and hence a threat to national security, although it is often linked to other forms of smuggling . As Buzan et al. point out, politicisation of a problem makes it ‘part of public policy, requiring government decision, and resource allocation, or more rarely, some other form of communal governance’ (Buzan et al. 1998). However, politicisation does not securitise a public policy issue. This would mean defining the issue as ‘an existential threat, requiring emergency measures and justifying actions outside the normal bounds of political procedure’. The state approach to the phenomenon of human trafficking in Southern Africa weakens the policy measures that are in place to address the problem as well as other forms of trafficking, for example drugs and illegal weapons.

Human trafficking as a global phenomenon has various dimensions. While all aspects of the problem are considered important, the security dimension is the specific focus of this book. Studying this requires the formulation of relevant questions, the main ones being about the extent of human trafficking and whether it constitutes a security issue in Southern Africa as a whole and in South Africa and Mozambique specifically. Addressing these questions is important because trafficking is mostly presented in Southern Africa as a socio-economic and political problem, rather than a security issue, with attention mainly being focused on its exploitative nature and its impact on human rights and dignity. This book also has another objective, specifically to address how and to what extent human trafficking is linked to organised crime in South Africa and Mozambique. While it is known that organised crime syndicates are involved in human trafficking in these countries, the question raised here allows us to look at the extent to which this is the case and how their involvement impacts on human as well as national security. The perception of policymakers regarding any social problem determines its prioritization; therefore it is important to address the extent to which policymakers’ perception of human trafficking in South Africa and Mozambique impacts on attempts to combat the problem. Addressing this will help us to explore how human trafficking is understood in the three-level securitisation spectrum of South Africa and Mozambique, ‘from non-politicised through politicised to securitised’ (Buzan et al. 1998).

An unprecedented increase in human trafficking within the Southern African region became noticeable from 1989. However, this does not suggest that human trafficking in Africa and Southern African began at this time. Some scholars have attributed the increase to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic and political consequences this had for countries such as Mozambique (Iroanya 2014; Martens et al. 2003). The choice of South Africa and Mozambique as reference points in this book is informed by their globally recognised statuses as ‘destination’ and ‘source’ countries in the human trafficking business (SADC 2017; US State Department 2017); South Africa the former and Mozambique the latter. Mozambique adopted specific legislation to combat human trafficking in 2008, wh...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Perspectives on Human Trafficking
• 3. Overview of Human Trafficking as a Global Phenomenon
• 4. Human Trafficking: The South African Experience
• 5. Human Trafficking: The Mozambican Experience
• 6. Policy Responses to Human Trafficking in Mozambique and South Africa
• 7. Conclusion: Human Trafficking as a Security Problem
• Back Matter