The government maintained efforts to prevent trafficking. The CNLTPPA, the government’s anti-trafficking coordinating body, met regularly. The MoWP led the committee, which included the ministries of Justice, Security, Labor, Foreign Affairs, and Defense. The government continued to allocate funds for equipment, supplies, and a dedicated communications budget to the CNLTPPA to support anti-trafficking efforts. However, observers noted the CNLTPPA lacked authority to effectively implement anti-trafficking policy and coordinate government activities.
The CNLTPPA, in partnership with civil society and foreign donors, organized several awareness campaigns on trafficking prevention and organized a national network of 22 NGOs working on human trafficking issues. The government operated a hotline for calls concerning victims of crime, including human trafficking, and labor violations. The government did not report statistics for how many calls the hotline received. A separate, NGO-run hotline for victims of gender-based violence fielded 1,869 calls in 2022. The government prohibited recruitment agencies from assessing recruitment fees and had policies to regulate foreign labor recruiters and hold them civilly and criminally liable for fraudulent recruitment; however, neither OPROGEM nor the Ministry of Labor had the resources or the trained personnel to monitor and enforce these policies consistently and did not report referring any potential cases for investigation. Despite the prevalence of child forced labor, labor inspectors conducted 411 inspections and did not report finding any child labor violations. The government did not report providing training on child labor laws to labor inspectors. The MoWP continued coordinating interagency border control units to ensure children crossing international borders were traveling with their families. The government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex.
The government did not report providing anti-trafficking training to its diplomatic personnel. The government provided human rights training, including on topics related to human trafficking, to its 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 a Guinean peacekeeper deployed to the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2019; the UN substantiated the allegations and repatriated the offender. The government had not yet reported the accountability measures taken, if any, by the end of the reporting period.
from 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report – U.S. Department of State
2023 Trafficking in Persons Report – United States Department of State
