The government increased efforts to prevent trafficking. The CNLTP, the government’s anti-trafficking body, met twice. The government adopted a new 2022-2025 anti-trafficking NAP and allocated 2.7 billion CFA ($4.5 million) for the CNLTP’s operations in 2023, including implementation of the NAP. The government also continued implementing its 2019-2023 NAP to combat child labor and child trafficking. The Oversight Committee to Combat Child Trafficking and the Worst Forms of Child Labor (CNS) and the Inter-Ministerial Committee in the Fight Against Child Trafficking, Child Exploitation, and Child Labor (CIM) continued to coordinate efforts to combat child labor and child trafficking. CNS oversaw CIM and conducted monitoring and evaluation activities of the NAP to combat child labor and child trafficking. Observers reported the CNLTP, although intended to lead the government’s anti-trafficking response, lacked the authority and resources to effectively do so. In practice, CNS oversaw child anti-trafficking efforts and CNLTP oversaw adult anti-trafficking efforts; observers noted this contributed to a disparity between interventions for adult and child victims. Observers also reported the need for more collaboration between the three committees. Nine regional anti-trafficking committees (including five committees created during the reporting period) coordinated regional prevention efforts and reported to the CNLTP.
The government conducted awareness raising activities on human trafficking and migrant smuggling in collaboration with NGOs. It also held public campaigns focused on child labor, which included some anti-trafficking components. The labor code regulated labor recruitment and labor migration; however, these regulations were poorly enforced in informal sectors, including domestic work, which increased vulnerability to trafficking. Observers estimated 80 to 90 percent of Cote d’Ivoire’s labor force worked in the informal economy. Despite reports of fraudulent labor recruiters exploiting victims domestically and abroad, the government did not actively monitor recruitment agencies, nor did it make efforts to hold fraudulent labor recruiters accountable. The government did not prohibit worker-paid recruitment fees. The government trained labor inspectors on identifying child labor and trafficking victims. However, despite conducting more than 9,500 inspections in 2023, labor inspectors did not identify any child labor or child trafficking cases during inspections. The Ministry of Water and Forests, responsible for surveilling the country’s natural resources, also monitored for child labor or trafficking violations during regular patrols of the forests, and its Special Surveillance and Intervention Brigade conducted investigations at cocoa farms; ministry personnel did not report referring any potential child labor or trafficking cases to law enforcement for criminal investigation. The government continued implementing its Child Labor Observation and Monitoring System in Cote d’Ivoire (SOSTECI), an early warning mechanism to prevent child labor, and it had SOSTECI monitoring committees in cocoa-producing areas throughout the country.
The Ministry of Women, Family, and Children operated a hotline to report child protection and human rights violations; it did not report how many trafficking victims, if any, it identified as a result of hotline calls. The government had two inter-ministerial commissions to adjudicate claims for an official statelessness status and issue nationality documents and birth certificates to vulnerable populations; however, the commissions lacked resources and processed claims slowly. The government made efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts by arresting buyers of commercial sex. The government did not report providing anti-trafficking training to troops prior to their deployment as peacekeepers; although not explicitly reported as human trafficking, there was one open case of alleged sexual exploitation with trafficking indicators by Ivoirian peacekeepers deployed to the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti. The government did not report accountability measures taken, if any, for the open case by the end of the reporting period.
from 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report – U.S. Department of State
2024 Trafficking in Persons Report – United States Department of State
