U.S. Dep't of State, 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report: Côte d’Ivoire

COTE D’IVOIRE (Tier 2) The Government of Cote d’Ivoire 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 Cote d’Ivoire remained on Tier 2. These efforts included identifying significantly more trafficking victims, adopting a new anti-trafficking NAP, and allocating dedicated funding for the interagency anti-trafficking committee’s (CNLTP’s) operations. The government investigated more trafficking cases and prosecuted and convicted more traffickers.

However, the government did not meet the minimum standards in several key areas. Shelter and services, especially for adult victims, remained inadequate. Law enforcement lacked specialized training and adequate resources to effectively investigate trafficking cases and identify victims. Labor inspectors did not identify any child trafficking cases during inspections, including in the cocoa sector.

The CNLTP lacked the authority and resources to effectively coordinate the government’s national anti-trafficking response. PRIORITIZED RECOMMENDATIONS: Increase efforts to investigate and prosecute alleged traffickers, including complicit officials, and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, which should involve significant prison terms. * Institutionalize training for law enforcement and judicial officials on investigating and prosecuting trafficking cases under the 2016 anti-trafficking law and employing specialized investigative and prosecutorial techniques. * Fully implement and train front-line actors, including law enforcement, judicial officials, labor inspectors, social workers, and NGOs, on the NRM and standardized procedures to identify human trafficking victims, including among vulnerable populations such as Ivoirian labor migrants, foreign migrants, child laborers, refugees, and individuals in commercial sex. * Increase the quantity and quality of care available for trafficking victims, especially adults, including by increasing financial and in-kind support to NGOs providing services to victims. * Strengthen the CNLTP’s authority to coordinate the government’s anti-trafficking response and implement the 2022-2025 anti-trafficking NAP, including by providing dedicated financial resources and convening regular meetings. * Increase funding and in-kind resources, as feasible, for anti-trafficking law enforcement units to investigate trafficking cases nationwide; delineate responsibilities and enhance coordination between the units. * Train law enforcement on effective, victim-centered investigation techniques and trauma-informed approaches when interviewing victims. * Increase efforts to prevent the fraudulent recruitment and exploitation of victims in Cote d’Ivoire and abroad, including by increasing oversight of labor recruitment agencies, holding fraudulent labor recruiters criminally accountable, and banning worker-paid recruitment fees. * Ensure labor protections are enforced in the informal sector, especially domestic work. * Improve nationwide data collection on anti-trafficking law enforcement and victim identification efforts, separate from child labor and other crimes. * Screen any North Korean workers for signs of trafficking and refer them to appropriate services, in a manner consistent with obligations under United Nations Security Council Resolution 2397.

PROSECUTION

The government increased law enforcement efforts. Law No. 2016-111 on the Fight Against Trafficking in Persons criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking and prescribed penalties of five to 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 5 million to 10 million West African CFA francs (FCFA) ($8,490-$16,980) for adult trafficking and 20 to 30 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 10 million to 50 million FCFA ($16,980-$84,890) for child trafficking. These penalties were sufficiently stringent and, with respect to sex trafficking, commensurate with those prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape. The 2010 Child Trafficking and Child Labor Law was also used to prosecute child trafficking, and it criminalized child sex trafficking and labor trafficking with 10 to 20 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 5 million to 20 million FCFA ($8,490-$33,955).

The government used penal code provisions on illegal mining and “pimping” to prosecute trafficking cases. The penal code prescribed penalties of one to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 1 million to 10 million FCFA ($1,700-$16,980) for “pimping” and penalties of two to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 50 million to 100 million FCFA ($84,890-$169,780) for illegal mining. These penalties were significantly lower than those prescribed under the anti-trafficking law. The government reported investigating 98 trafficking cases, compared with initiating 10 and continuing 13 investigations during the previous reporting period.

The government reported prosecuting 109 alleged traffickers and convicting 46 traffickers under the 2016 anti-trafficking law. This compared with prosecuting 25 alleged traffickers and convicting 11 traffickers during the previous reporting period. The government did not provide sentencing information for the convicted traffickers. The government did not disaggregate between sex and labor trafficking, and the data may have included other crimes, such as sexual abuse or child labor.

The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government officials complicit in human trafficking crimes; however, official corruption and complicity in trafficking crimes remained concerns, inhibiting law enforcement action. In previous years, observers alleged low-ranking police on the borders with Mali and Ghana facilitated migrant smuggling, including potential trafficking cases, and organized a system to collect bribes at checkpoints and along bus routes. In 2018, five gendarmes and two military firefighters allegedly abducted a trafficking victim from an NGO shelter. A subsequent prosecution of four of the gendarmes and one of the military firefighters for kidnapping of a minor, forced confinement, and attempted rape involving the abducted child victim remained pending before a military investigative judge.

The Sub-Directorate in the Fight against Trafficking and Child Labor (SDLTEDJ) bore primary responsibility for enforcing anti-trafficking laws and investigating cases throughout the country; it operated specialized anti-child labor and child trafficking police units in six cities. The gendarmes, under the Ministry of Defense, were responsible for investigations in rural areas where the SDLTEDJ was not present. The Brigade Mondaine was responsible for investigating sex trafficking cases; however, resource constraints limited investigations to Abidjan and a few regional precincts. The Transnational Organized Crime Unit operated a specialized human trafficking department that had jurisdiction over transnational trafficking cases.

However, the law enforcement units lacked coordination, and no unit had a clear responsibility for internal adult labor trafficking cases. Limited funding and resources significantly hindered law enforcement’s ability to identify and investigate human trafficking cases. The government did not report operationalizing prosecutorial teams within the appeals courts focused on combating human trafficking in four cities; proposed in 2021, the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights intended these to accelerate the procedural process and support trafficking prosecutions. The government collaborated with foreign counterparts from Benin, Ghana, and Nigeria on law enforcement activities.

It had an MOU on combating human trafficking with Nigeria, and Ivoirian and Nigerian officials convened meetings to facilitate law enforcement cooperation. The Ministry of Justice held trainings for magistrates on the 2016 anti-trafficking law. International organizations, with some government support, also trained judicial and law enforcement officials on topics including anti-trafficking legal frameworks, investigative techniques, and victim-witness protection. The government collaborated with an international organization to develop and launch an anti-trafficking training module for law enforcement officials.

However, observers reported law enforcement and judicial officials needed additional specialized anti-trafficking training. Some judges and prosecutors remained unaware of the 2016 law and continued to use the 2010 law and illegal mining and “pimping” statutes to prosecute trafficking cases, which carried lesser penalties. Officials often conflated human trafficking with other crimes, such as child labor. The government’s capacity to collect anti-trafficking statistics and comprehensively report on law enforcement action was limited.

PROTECTION

The government increased efforts to identify and protect victims. The government reported identifying and referring to care 2,292 trafficking victims, the majority of whom were adults, including 461 sex trafficking and 1,532 labor trafficking victims, and 299 victims exploited in unspecified forms of trafficking. This compared with identifying and referring 1,185 victims to services during the previous reporting period. The majority of identified victims were Ivoirian; foreign national victims were from Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and other West African countries.

Due to the lack of a centralized data collection system and conflation of trafficking with other crimes, victim identification data likely included cases that were not human trafficking, including child labor, forced marriage (without reported indicators of sex or labor trafficking), and sexual abuse. NGOs identified 172 victims, including 32 sex trafficking and 140 labor trafficking victims. The government continued its program to identify vulnerable children using the streets as a source of livelihood, including potential trafficking victims; authorities referred the children to temporary shelters and, where possible, foster families. The government assisted approximately 5,500 vulnerable children through the program since 2020.

The government continued implementing an NRM with standardized procedures to proactively identify trafficking victims and refer them to care; law enforcement and regional protection actors utilized the NRM to refer more victims to services. The NRM directed law enforcement to alert CNLTP when officers identified a victim, and CNLTP subsequently coordinated victim referral to services. International organizations, with some government support, trained law enforcement, social workers, and other government stakeholders on the NRM procedures. However, government and civil society stakeholders reported officials required additional training to fully implement the NRM.

The government typically referred adult trafficking victims to NGOs or host families and child victims to NGO and government-run shelters or foster families. Officials could also refer trafficking victims for psychological care to government-run centers for victims of abuse. The government provided food, medical care, and psycho-social support to victims. The government, in partnership with an NGO, operated three shelters for vulnerable children, including two dedicated shelters for child labor and trafficking victims.

There was no government-run or supported shelter that could accommodate adult trafficking victims. A lack of coordination among government ministries hindered the provision of services in some cases. Law enforcement sometimes housed child trafficking victims in their offices for several days, providing basic necessities at their own expense until they could place the child in a shelter. The government donated 25 million FCFA ($42,445) in in-kind resources, including food and material support, to NGO shelters.

However, observers reported government support for victim protection and services remained inadequate, and in many cases, NGOs funded and provided the majority of victim care. Observers noted social workers lacked the resources and specialized training to effectively care for victims and monitor the reintegration of child victims. The lack of services, especially for adults, and lack of reintegration assistance rendered many victims vulnerable to re-victimization. Foreign victims had the same access to care as Ivoirian victims.

The government did not have a formal policy providing temporary or permanent residency to foreign victims who faced hardship or retribution in their countries of origin. In some cases, the government depended on foreign victims’ home embassies to provide shelter and care prior to repatriation. The government repatriated Ivoirian migrants, including trafficking victims, from Niger, Sudan, and Tunisia and provided reintegration support. Access to victim services was not dependent on cooperation with law enforcement proceedings.

The government offered some victim-witness assistance, including legal support, shelter, and voluntary return assistance to support victim participation in the criminal justice process. However, observers reported the government did not always provide or refer trafficking victims to legal aid, which hindered victims’ ability to press charges against alleged traffickers and, for foreign victims, to address immigration issues. Stakeholders reported law enforcement sometimes used trauma-insensitive tactics when interviewing victims, including children. Trafficking victims could file civil suits against traffickers, but none reportedly did so.

Ivoirian law allowed victims to obtain restitution, but the government did not report ordering restitution in any cases. Officials screened for trafficking indicators among migrants and individuals in commercial sex. However, due to inconsistent application of standardized victim identification procedures, some victims may have remained unidentified within the law enforcement system.

PREVENTION

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. TRAFFICKING PROFILE: As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Cote d’Ivoire, and traffickers exploit victims from Cote d’Ivoire abroad. Due to a stronger emphasis on combating internal child trafficking, the prevalence of adult trafficking may be underreported. Traffickers exploit Ivoirian women and girls in sex trafficking, especially in Abidjan.

Traffickers are increasingly using technology, such as the ecommerce website Qnet, to fraudulently recruit victims for jobs and subsequently exploit them in sex trafficking. Traffickers exploit Ivoirian boys and boys from other West African countries, especially Burkina Faso and Mali, in forced labor in agriculture, especially cocoa production, and mining. Observers reported the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic impacts, as well as insecurity in neighboring countries, have increased child labor and forced child labor, especially on cocoa farms; one NGO estimated more than 790,000 children, ages 5 to 17, work on Ivoirian cocoa plantations. Widespread poverty among cocoa-growing communities, extremely low cocoa prices and small profits for farmers, and lack of educational opportunities further increase the prevalence of child labor and forced labor in the cocoa sector.

Traffickers exploit boys in forced labor on coffee and rubber plantations, animal herding, carpentry, construction, and forced begging in Cote d’Ivoire. Children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to sex trafficking and labor trafficking. Corrupt Quranic teachers exploit Ivoirian and West African boys, including from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Senegal, in forced begging in northern and central Cote d’Ivoire. Drug traffickers use children – some of whom may be forced labor victims – in drug production, transport, and selling.

Traffickers – commonly distant relatives – bring girls from rural Cote d’Ivoire and other West African countries to Abidjan ostensibly to go to school or receive professional training but subsequently exploit them in domestic servitude; these girls are also vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Individuals living in Cote d’Ivoire without identity documents are vulnerable to human trafficking; children without identity documents cannot enroll in school past the elementary level, increasing their vulnerability to trafficking. Traffickers exploit Ivoirian and migrant workers, including Malian and Burkinabe nationals, in forced labor in the cocoa sector and artisanal mining, sometimes through debt bondage. Observers reported recruiters deceive workers about working conditions and charge worker-paid recruitment fees, including for transportation costs; some employers pay the fees and subsequently exploit the workers in debt bondage, reportedly charging them up to five times the original cost of transportation.

Nigerian traffickers fraudulently recruit women and girls from Nigeria and other neighboring countries for employment in shops or restaurants and subsequently exploit them in sex trafficking in gold mining and cocoa-producing regions. An international organization noted cultural beliefs correlating sex with increased chances of finding gold increase the demand for sex trafficking in mining communities. Refugees and migrants from Burkina Faso and Mali, including children, lacking birth certificates and identity documents are vulnerable to trafficking. North Korean nationals working in Cote d’Ivoire may be operating under exploitative working conditions and display multiple indicators of forced labor.

Traffickers fraudulently recruit Ivoirian women, men, and girls for work in the Middle East and Europe and subsequently exploit them in forced labor in Europe, North Africa, and Gulf countries. Traffickers often operate in well-established networks consisting of both Ivoirians and foreigners to fraudulently recruit and exploit victims abroad. Ivoirian migrants in Libya and Tunisia are vulnerable to trafficking. Migrants commonly depart from Daloa and proceed via airplane to Tunisia or travel overland via Niger to Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia.

In Tunisia, intermediaries confiscate migrants’ identity documents until they can pay for the next part of their journey, increasing vulnerability to trafficking. International organizations and Ivoirian law enforcement agencies reported Ivoirian migrant smuggling networks based in Tunisia increasingly became involved in trafficking as European governments blocked migration inflows; these networks also coerce Ivoirians to engage in unlawful acts, including drug smuggling. Organized criminal networks and smugglers fraudulently recruit Ivoirian boys to play professional soccer in North Africa or Europe; once they arrive, they are vulnerable to forced labor. An international organization reported an increase in Ivoirian migrant women and unaccompanied children arriving in Italy; an NGO reported traffickers sexually exploit many of the women in Libya prior to their arrival in Italy.

Once in Italy, Ivoirian children and young adults are at an increased risk of sex trafficking. On This Page search > < COTE D’IVOIRE (Tier 2) PRIORITIZED RECOMMENDATIONS: PROSECUTION PROTECTION PREVENTION TRAFFICKING PROFILE: Tags Bureau of African Affairs Côte d'Ivoire Human Trafficking Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Reports