Traffickers exploit soccer fever

HUMAN traffickers and smugglers in Ethiopia have taken advantage of the upcoming World Cup, duping victims into believing that South Africa has created huge employment opportunities, says a government report, Illegal Migration: Causes, Consequences and Solutions to human trafficking and smuggling in Ethiopia.

Some 20,000 to 25,000 Ethiopians are trafficked to various countries annually, the January report notes. Together with smuggling from Somalia, the business is worth up to US$40 million a year, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Traffickers operate in organised groups of eight to 25 in big towns.

Human traffickers use various tricks, including the deception that South Africa has created employment opportunities, Zenebu Tadesse, State Minister for Labour and Social Affairs, said.

Speaking at a national conference on human trafficking and smuggling, she said the government would implement measures to tackle the problem, including repatriating thousands of Ethiopians who had been trafficked out of their country and protecting the rights of those living in various countries. So far, she added, 2,000 Ethiopians had been repatriated from Tanzania, Yemen, Libya and other Gulf countries, with the support of the IOM, the UN Refugee Agency and other stakeholders.

Some traffickers and smugglers have also been arraigned in court. Ethiopian police have recently found some eight human traffickers and smugglers and sentenced them to five to 12 years, said Moni Mengesha, head of the human trafficking and illegal drugs department at the Ethiopian federal police.

Going south

Alemu (not his real name), a 27-year-old businessman, left for South Africa in 2009 but ended up in a migrants camp in Malawi. I went to one of the secret evening presentations given by brokers in Hosaina town [400km south of the capital, Addis Ababa], he said. I decided that night to sell everything, close my small shop and travel to South Africa.

They travelled in a group of eight. The broker told us the journey from Ethiopia to South Africa would be very easy, he added. [But] one died from hunger as we travelled four days without food, another was shot dead [allegedly] by police around the border between Kenya and Tanzania.IRIN