Bishoftu – Officials from various arms of the Government of Ethiopia met (23-24 January) to endorse and agree on the roll out of a broad-based curriculum on countertrafficking. The meeting was held in Bishoftu in Oromia Regional State.

Participants came from the Office of the Prime Minister, Addis Ababa Police Commission, Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, Ethiopia Police University College, Federal Court, Federal Justice and Legal Research and Training Institute as well as the Federal Police Commission. House of Peoples Representative, House of Federation, Ministry of Peace, and the National Disaster Risk Management Commission, and the Office of the Attorney General were also represented.

Ethiopia is a major country of origin, transit, and destination for migrants and refugees in the region due to various push and pull factors. Many of them are vulnerable to traffickers. The need to strengthen efforts to counter human trafficking have never been stronger.

“I was told by the smuggler that I would make it to Saudi Arabia after I paid 4,000 Saudi Riyals. However, even after I paid 7,000, I found myself in detention for a month,” said Kedija, 19, who fell victim to traffickers in her bid to reach Saudi Arabia. She ended up being detained in Yemen.

“I was fortunate my sister paid for my release, as many who could not pay the ransom like me were raped,” she added.

 Kedija is among hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian migrants who tried to travel irregularly to the Middle East through the Eastern route over the past two years.

“When they describe to you the journey, they paint a rosy picture making it sound so easy,” said 17-year-old Ahmed, another returnee from Wollo Area in the Northern part of Ethiopia’s Amhara Region. 

“They told us that we don’t even need to have the money upfront, we will pay after we work there (in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), but it was all a lie. We were beaten badly and witnessed two men die from the severe beatings in order to extract ransom from them at the detention center in Yemen,” he added.  

In 2014, the African Union launched the African Union Horn of Africa Initiative for Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants (AU-HoAI) as response to the rise in human trafficking in the region.

Through the initiative, the African Union has been working to strengthen the capacity of countries in the region to intervene, especially by improving the capacity of law enforcement officials from respective immigration, prosecution and police departments. With the help of IOM, a generic training manual on countertrafficking and migrant smuggling has been developed and the African Union has started supporting member states to integrate it within their national training curricula.

The manual has four modules covering concepts, legal and policy frameworks, addressing the smuggling of migrants, and combatting trafficking in persons. It will allow different professionals dealing with these issues, to familiarize themselves with the approaches and techniques to counter responses.

“The mainstreaming initiative was born out of capacity building trainings provided to fifty-one law enforcement officials from the respective immigration, prosecution and police departments of member states in 2018,” said Peter Mudungwe, the Migration Advisor at the African Union Commission.

In Bishoftu, delegates discussed how to apply the manual in the Ethiopian context.

Ms. Feteya Seid, Head of the National Anti-Human Trafficking and Smuggling of Migrants Taskforce Secretariat stressed on the need to institutionalize efforts to deal with human trafficking and smuggling.

The Office of the Attorney General explained the institutional and legal measures in place, such as the National Anti-Trafficking Council, to deal with cases of trafficking. The council, which is chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, is composed of different line ministries at federal and regional levels. It has technical working groups on prevention, prosecution, victim protection and research.

The National Stakeholder Workshop in Bishoftu was funded by the Permanent Mission of Norway to the African Union, which is also supporting the African Union Commission to improve the free movement regime on the African continent.

For further information, please contact Eric Mazango at IOM Ethiopia, Tel: +251.11. 6611117 (Ext. 456), Email: emazango@iom.int