Human trafficking in Rwanda

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (July 2018)

Rwanda ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol in September 2003.^[1]

In 2010 Rwanda was a source and, to a lesser extent, destination country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Rwandan girls were exploited in involuntary domestic servitude within the country; some of these children experienced physical or sexual abuse within their employer's household. Older females offered vulnerable younger girls room and board, eventually pushing them into prostitution to pay for their keep. In limited cases, this trafficking was facilitated by women who supplied females to clients or by loosely organized prostitution networks, some operating in secondary schools and universities. Rwandan children were also trafficked to Uganda, Tanzania, and other countries in the region for forced agricultural labor, commercial sexual exploitation, and domestic servitude, sometimes after being recruited by peers. In Rwanda there have been reports of isolated cases involving child trafficking victims from neighboring countries. Unlike in past years, there was no indication in 2009 that the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) duped or recruited Congolese men and boys from Rwanda-based refugee camps, as well as Rwandans from nearby towns, into forced labor and soldiering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.^[2]

In 2009 the Government of Rwanda did not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it made significant efforts to do so. During 2009, the government enacted a new labour code prohibiting forced labor and the enslavement of children; advanced penal code revisions containing anti-trafficking provisions through the legislative process; opened a care center for victims of gender-based violence, including trafficking victims; and launched a public awareness campaign on the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Rwanda remains the only African country in which the government is undertaking virtually all activities related to the demobilization and reintegration of former child soldiers. While government officials are quick to recognize and respond to suspected cases of transnational child trafficking, some officials do not believe internal trafficking is possible because of the country's small size and the government's effective security measures. Additional training is greatly needed to increase officials' awareness of the nature of human trafficking and to provide practical skills for responding to it.^[2]

The U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country on the "Tier 2 Watchlist" in 2017.^[3] By 2023, the country had moved to the Tier 2 category. ^[4]

In 2023 the Organised Crime Index gave Rwanda a score of 5 out of 10 for human trafficking, noting that tighter border security had reduced the number of victims being taken out of the country.^[5]