Informing humanitarians worldwide 24/7 — a service provided by UN OCHA

Iraq + 8 more

IOM press briefing note 25 Mar 2003: Iraq, Jordan, South Africa

Extract
JORDAN - Assistance to Third Country Nationals Fleeing Iraq - IOM's Director General, Mr. Brunson McKinley is in Jordan today on a three-day official visit. He is scheduled to meet with the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr Shaher Bak, the Minister of the Interior, Mr Qaftan Majali, the Minister of Planning, Dr Basem Awadallah, and Major General Majed Al Etan, Head of the Crisis Management Centre.

Mr. McKinley has scheduled a press conference in Amman today at 17h00 local time, following the daily UN press briefing. Tomorrow, the Director General will visit IOM transport operations at the Iraq border and the Ruweished transit camp for third country nationals (TCNs) fleeing Iraq.

IOM is providing transport assistance to third country nationals and refugees to transit camps in countries bordering Iraq; repatriation for third country nationals; and coordination of relief efforts for displaced persons inside Iraq, as soon as access becomes possible.

Today, nine Egyptians, five Somalis and one Lebanese, who arrived in the transit over the past 24 hours, are scheduled to leave the transit camp and return home with IOM assistance.

A group of 20 Palestinians who were in no man's land were transported by IOM top the transit camp in Ruweished.

Over the past week IOM has assisted 559 TCNs who had fled from Iraq into Jordan. Some 361 of them, including 305 Sudanese, 39 Egyptians, 10 Chadians, 1Yemeni, 1 Somali and 4 South Africans, have returned home with IOM assistance. Some 199 people remain in the Ruweished transit camp, pending their return home.

IOM is currently providing similar services for TCNs who fled into Syria. On Sunday IOM assisted 28 Moroccans to return to Casablanca from Damascus on a commercial flight.

IOM planners in the region are currently working with UN agencies, NGOs and others to prepare for the eventuality of large numbers of internally displaced persons in post-conflict Iraq.

SOUTH AFRICA - New Report on Trafficking of Women and Children in Southern Africa - The IOM office in Pretoria launched a new report on the nature of the trade in women and children in southern Africa.

The report's findings, made public in Pretoria yesterday, are compiled from research ad interviews carried out between August 2002 and February 2003. The authors assembled interviews and statements from victims, sex workers, traffickers, police and government officials, NGOs, and the media. IOM researchers conducted 232 interviews, including 25 interviews with victims from 11 countries.

Some of the report's findings include:

  • international trafficking in the region is more pervasive than thought, especially for sex work;
  • methods and patterns of deceit and exploitation;
  • South Africa is the main destination country;
  • awareness raising and training of officials is needed;
  • legislation in the region generally fails to criminalize trafficking, or adequately protect victims;

The report also points out that Southern Africa hosts a diverse range of human trafficking activities, from the global operations of Chinese triad groups, and Russian organized crime, to the local trade in persons across land borders perpetrated by local syndicates. The region's young women and children are especially vulnerable to the recruitment tactics of traffickers because civil unrest and economic deprivation leave them with few opportunities at home.

A brief summary of the report's main findings:

Refugees are both victims and perpetrators of trafficking to South Africa. As male refugees struggle with unemployment and xenophobia in South Africa, many choose to recruit female family members from their countries of origin to South Africa. These women are 25 years and older, are married and have children. Individual refugee traffickers are assisted by ethnically-based refugee syndicates in delivering the recruiting letter to the victim in her country of origin, escorting her to South Africa, and sexually assaulting her as an initiation to sex work, should she resist upon arrival. The refugee trafficker will take all of the victim's earnings and will assist the victim in applying for refugee status to prevent her deportation, in case police detains her.

In Lesotho, children from rural areas gravitate to Maseru to escape domestic violence, or the effects of HIV/AIDS. As street children, they are coerced or forcibly abducted by white, Afrikaans-speaking men, and taken across the border, with the consent of border officials, to border towns and asparagus farms in the Eastern Free State. They are held captive in private houses and sexually assaulted in a sadistic manner over several days by small groups of white men Victims are then returned to Maseru, and left on the streets . Street children in Maseru are also trafficked by long-distance truck drivers, who keep them as sex slaves; travelling as far as Cape Town, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.

Mozambican victims are aged between 14 and 24, and are offered jobs as waitresses or sex workers in Johannesburg. The victims must pay traffickers some 500 South African Rand (ZAR) (approx. US$65) to smuggle them across the border in minibus taxis. Once in South Africa, they spend one night in transit houses along the border with Mozambique and Swaziland, where they are sexually assaulted as an initiation for the sex work that awaits them. Once in Johannesburg, some are sold to brothels in for some 1,000 ZAR (approx. US$125). Others are sold as slaves on private order, or shopped around to mineworkers. The report estimates that at least 1,000 Mozambican victims are recruited, transported, and exploited in this way every year, earning traffickers approximately one million ZAR annually.

Malawi is characterized by three different trafficking flows. First, women and girls are recruited by Malawian businesswomen promising them jobs and educational opportunities in Europe. Sometimes payment the victim's parents receive money. Once in the Netherlands, the victim is sold to a Nigerian trafficker for US$10,000, and told that she must work as a sex-worker to pay off a debt of US$40,000. The victim is then sold to other Nigerian agents working in Belgium, Germany, and Italy, or rented to local brothels. Second, women and girls are recruited along major transportation routes in Malawi by long distance truckers who promise marriage, jobs, or educational opportunities in South Africa. Once in Johannesburg, the victim is held as a sex slave. Malawian businesswomen also traffic victims to brothels in Johannesburg. Third, girls and boys are recruited in the holiday resorts along Lake Malawi by European sex tourists who pay money to the child's parents with promises of educational opportunities in Eu

rope. The victims are featured in pornographic videos that are transmitted over the Internet with victims' names and contact details included. In Europe, the children are sexually exploited in private homes, and are sold to paedophile rings.

For more information, please contact IOM Pretoria, Tel: 012.3422789 email: spretorius@iom.int