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Despite Internal Challenges Sudan’s Regional Efforts on Human Trafficking are Commendable

By Swaib K Nsereko
Opinion Despite Internal Challenges Sudans Regional Efforts on Human Trafficking are Commendable
DEC 31, 2018 LISTEN

Sudan is coalescing regional efforts, inclusive of Uganda to combat human trafficking and illegal immigration. The conduct of human trafficking which is the modern day slavery is not only ethically immoral but also a serious crime and grave violation of human rights. It involves the practice of illegally journeying people from one country to another for purposes of involuntary labor or commercial sex exploitation—subjecting victims to a permanent traumatized life. But unlike old slavery that occurred in specific countries, today’s slavery is virtually present in every country—either as that country being the source, transit or destination of victims.

Human trafficking has become a global threat to vulnerable young men, women and children. Traffickers exploit their sorry welfare situations, poverty and fractured families. The US State Department estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people are transferred across international borders annually—of whom 80 percent are female and half are children. A significant number of these are in the Horn, East and Central African region. Uganda and Sudan are, however, described as major centers where substantial actions are going on to contain the crime.

Sudan specifically is ahead of regional counterparts in instituting measures to this effect. Besides legal enactments such as the Combating Human Traffic Act, 2014 and the National Committee for Combating Human Trafficking, Khartoum, in 2016 hosted the first ever international conference on trafficking of persons. This was after it mooted the idea during the international refugee conference in Geneva, 2012.

In its further efforts that are turning into a regional model, Sudan has so far prosecuted and convicted 536 individuals—foreign and local who were engaged in this practice. Over 4,000 victims of the dread activity have been rescued and either rejoined with their respective families or taken care of in refugee camps with basic humanitarian provisions. And the local destitute are supplied a consignment of food items on a monthly basis.

An international fact-finding mission comprising the United States, UK, Norway and Italy has since lauded Khartoum for facilitating an environment that enables various agencies seeking to reach out to abducted women and children in the civil strife-torn regions of Darfur and Kordofan. Khartoum provided ample logistical and administrative support.

Like any other country, though, Sudan is severally facing challenges in its approaches to the human trafficking phenomenon. Effects of the economic embargo are limiting its provision of material and technical capabilities to monitor the vast borders with its nine -neighboring countries. This, therefore, as Khartoum suggests, requires an effective regional cooperation of security agencies. But again the various territorial claims and internal conflicts characterizing Sudan’s neighbors aggravate the situation—making the region a fertile ground for human traffickers. Given its own internal challenges, Khartoum also experiences limitations in capacity building for the human resource and logistics to effectively conduct the enormous tasks.

While the world acknowledges the numerous negative effects of human trafficking on the hundreds of thousands of our vulnerable people, it’s imperative to cooperate and render a hand with such efforts as undertaken by Khartoum.

By Swaib K Nsereko
Lecturer in Mass Communication Department, Islamic University in Uganda/National Coordinator, Moral Reform Movement

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