The Government of Tunisia does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so. The government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared with the previous reporting period; therefore Tunisia remained on Tier 2. These efforts included convicting the largest number of traffickers since the enactment of the 2016 anti-trafficking law and continuing to train officials on the use of the NRM. The government also provided expertise to multiple governments developing victim identification and referral procedures. The government continued partnering with international organizations and some NGOs to ensure all identified victims received appropriate services. However, the government did not meet the minimum standards in several key areas. The government identified the fewest number of trafficking victims since 2017. Xenophobic rhetoric from high-level government officials and widespread official actions, such as expulsions and forcible displacement, without screening for trafficking indicators, continued to increase undocumented migrants’ vulnerability to trafficking and reluctance to report trafficking crimes due to distrust of authorities, fear of retaliation, and deportation. The lack of implementation or awareness of victim identification procedures and screening among vulnerable populations may have led authorities to inappropriately penalize some unidentified victims for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked. Despite allegations some officials accepted bribes to facilitate trafficking, the government did not report any law enforcement action against complicit officials.
As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Tunisia, and traffickers exploit victims from Tunisia abroad. Some Tunisian children are vulnerable to forced labor and sex trafficking in Tunisia. During the pandemic, child sex trafficking, including online sexual exploitation and recruitment through social media, increased; the government also reported family members were, at times, the alleged trafficker. Tunisian girls working in domestic service for wealthy families in Tunis and major coastal cities are highly vulnerable to trafficking, experiencing restrictions on movement, physical and psychological violence, and sexual abuse. Tunisian children – many of whom dropped out of school and were between the ages of 11 and 12 years old – work in small workshops, auto mechanic garages, and domestic service; some of these children may be vulnerable to trafficking. Children who experience homelessness or use the streets as a source of livelihood and rural children working in agriculture to support their families in Tunisia are vulnerable to forced labor or sex trafficking. Organized gangs force children who experience homelessness into theft, begging, and drug trafficking. Traffickers reportedly exploit Tunisian women in sex trafficking under false promises of work within the country.
Migrants and refugees are particularly vulnerable to sex trafficking, domestic servitude, and other forms of forced labor in Tunisia. Foreign trafficking victims either come from countries for which Tunisia allows a stay of up to three months without a visa or arrive in Tunisia on a valid tourist or student visa and remain in an exploitative situation for an average of five to 13 months, surpassing the validity of their visa, according to civil society organizations. Traffickers increasingly exploit women, primarily from West Africa and increasingly from Cote d’Ivoire, in domestic servitude in private homes in Tunis, Sfax, Sousse, and Gabes. Traffickers forced some men from Cote d’Ivoire to work on farms and construction sites. Traffickers reportedly coerce Ivoirians to smuggle cannabis and opioids into Tunisia. Recruiters in Cote d’Ivoire target well-educated and non-skilled individuals in the country with false and fraudulent promises of work in Tunisia. Well-educated Ivoirians who pay a recruiter to assist them to find work in Tunisia are reportedly promised jobs that do not exist and, upon arrival in Tunisia, are held in debt bondage and are forced into domestic service in Tunisian households. Recruiters also target unskilled and uneducated individuals, primarily from San Pedro, Cote d’Ivoire, to work in domestic service, construction, or agriculture in Tunisia; recruiters and employers then require these individuals to repay the transportation costs and recruitment fees upon arrival, resulting in debt bondage, according to civil society organizations. Female victims of domestic servitude and other forms of forced labor, whose employers hold them in debt bondage, are further exploited by nightclub owners that cater to sub-Saharan African communities in Tunisia. The nightclub owners falsely promise to pay the women’s debts in exchange for working in the nightclubs as servers, but the owners subsequently force the women into sex trafficking for the nightclubs’ clientele as reported by civil society organizations. Male migrants from sub-Saharan Africa who experience poor working conditions could be vulnerable to forced labor. Tunisian LGBTQI+ rights associations report migrants and asylum-seekers from neighboring countries who escaped violence or discrimination because of their gender identity or sexual orientation may be particularly vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labor in Tunisia. Boys from sub-Saharan and West Africa, including Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria, are vulnerable to trafficking after accepting fraudulent offers of soccer careers in Tunisia. The majority of unaccompanied child migrants in Tunisia experience human rights abuses, including sex and labor trafficking, during their journey and in Tunisia. Reports by international organizations indicate an increase in criminal networks kidnapping migrants at the Algerian and Tunisian borders, holding the migrants in Sfax, and torturing the migrants to extort ransoms; criminal networks may have also subjected the migrants to sex and labor trafficking. Humanitarian workers assisting forcibly displaced migrants in border areas reported residents coerced some migrant women into performing sex acts in exchange for food and basic services, a form of sex trafficking.
Traffickers reportedly exploit Tunisian women in sex trafficking under false promises of work in the region, such as Lebanon, the UAE, and Jordan. Tunisian trafficking victims were identified in Saudi Arabia. Since 2020, an increasing number of undocumented Tunisian migrants traveled to Italy in part because of pandemic-related economic fallout; these undocumented migrants are vulnerable to trafficking.
from 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report – U.S. Department of State
2024 Trafficking in Persons Report – United States Department of State
