AFRICA - House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats

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which it is culturally accepted to send one’s child to live and work with a family
in an urban center for educational and employment purposes. Often the children in
these situations only work and do not get any formal education. They are forced to
serve as domestics or to become street hawkers selling nuts, fruits, or other items.
There were credible reports that poor families sell their daughters into marriage as
a means of supplementing their income (see Section 5).
According to reports from the media and the ILO, there is an active trade in child
laborers, some of whom are exported to Cameroon, Gabon, Benin, and Equatorial
Guinea to work in agricultural enterprises, others of whom are coerced into prostitution.
Authorities also have identified a trade route for traffickers of children for
labor through Katsina and Sokoto to the Middle East and East Africa. The eastern
part of the country and some southern states such as Cross River and Akwa Ibom
have been the focus of trafficking of children for labor and, in some cases, human
sacrifice. The country remains a destination point for the trafficking of Togolese
children to serve as domestic or agricultural workers.
The Government is investigating allegations of the collusion of customs officials
in trafficking. Some of the returnees have alleged that immigration officials actively
connive with syndicates; however, there were no arrests of immigration officials for
trafficking offenses during the year.
The Assistant Inspector General of Police is investigating allegations of the collusion
of customs officials in trafficking.
There is government and societal acknowledgement that trafficking in women is
a continuing problem, particularly to Western Europe. Police attempts to stem the
trafficking of persons include extended jail sentences and public humiliation; however,
such actions focused primarily on victims. Traffickers were not punished.
Awareness campaigns, often conducted by NGO’s and others, only recently have
begun to generate widespread attention. For example, in September the Edo state
governor and his wife, who heads a local NGO knows as the Idia Renaissance, used
the passage of new legislation banning prostitution and related activities to raise
awareness of the trafficking problem. Also in September, President Obasanjo’s wife
assisted a Catholic charity in distributing new passports to sex workers stranded
in Italy. However, there are no reliable statistics to determine if these campaigns
were effective in reducing incidences of trafficking. The development of a reliable
statistical base for assessing the child trafficking problem began under ILO auspices.
RWANDA
The largely Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which took power following the
civil war and genocide of 1994, is the principal political force and controls the Government
of National Unity. On March 23, President Pasteur Bizimungu, who had
been President since 1994, tendered his resignation. In accordance with the 1993
Arusha Accords, the RPF submitted two candidates to the National Assembly, which
elected former Vice President and Minister of Defense General Paul Kagame, who
was sworn in as President on April 22. The leadership transition took place without
incident and was the first nonviolent presidential change in the country’s history.
President Kagame did not name a Vice President, but named a new Minister of Defense,
Colonel Emmanuel Habyarimana, shortly after taking office. On February 28,
Prime Minister Pierre Celestin Rwigema resigned and in accordance with the
Arusha accords, on March 8, he was replaced by Bernard Makuza. The Prime Minister
runs the Government on a daily basis and is responsible for relations with the
National Assembly, which is influenced by the executive branch. In January the
former Speaker of the Assembly, Joseph Seberenzi, was forced from office due to a
political party power struggle. In 1994 the parties agreed to suspend party activity
below the national level for the duration of the transition period, which originally
was scheduled to end in July 1999. However, in June 1999, the Government announced
the extension of the transition period for another 4 years. While March
1999 local elections for community development committees were held, commune
level elections were postponed until 2001 due to legislative, logistical, and financial
problems. The judiciary suffers from a lack of resources, inefficiency, and some corruption.
The Minister of Defense is responsible for external security and military defense;
the Minister of Internal Security is responsible for civilian security matters as well
as supervision of the prisons and the national police. The new civilian Rwandan National
Police (RNP) replaced the gendarmerie and the communal police. The security
apparatus consists of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) and the police. A volunteer
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