encdchumanrightscommittee

Trafficking in Persons Report 2012

ERITREA (Tier 3)

Eritrea is a source country for men, women, and children subjected forced labor and, to a lesser extent, sex traficking. During the reporting period, forced labor occurred in Eritrea, particularly due to the country’s national service program. Under the Proclamation of National Service (No. 82/1995), men aged 18 to 54 and women aged 18 to 47 are required to provide 18 months of military and non-military service in any location or capacity chosen by the government. Some national service conscripts, however, are required to continue their service indeinitely, beyond the duration speciied by law, with many required to serve in their positions for more than 10 years under the threat of inhuman treatment, including harsh working conditions, torture, or punishment of their families. There  continue  to  be  repor ts  that  some  Eritrean  conscripts are forced to build private homes for army oficers, as well as to perform agricultural labor on farms and construction activities for irms owned by the state, the ruling party, senior army oficers, and private investors, functions that fall outside the scope of the proclamation. During the reporting period, the Ministry of Education continued Mahtot, a national program in which schools send children to build stone terraces, maintain roads, and lay power lines.

The military’s four command zones reportedly use conscripted labor to undertake diversiied economic activities, including trading, farming, property development, and infrastructure construction, for the enrichment of thegovernment, the ruling party, and high-ranking army oficers. National service conscripts could not resign from their jobs or take new employment, received no promotions or salary increases, and could not leave the country because they were denied passports or exit visas. Some nat ional  ser v ice  members  were  assigned  to  return  to  their civilian jobs while nominally kept in the military because their skills were deemed critical to the functioning of the government or the economy; these individuals continued to receive only their national service salary and were required to forfeit to the government any money they earned above and beyond that salary.

Eritrean children work in various economic sectors, including domestic service, street vending, small-scale manufacturing, and agriculture; child laborers frequently suffer abuse from their employers and some may be subjected to forced labor. In addition, children may be exploited in Eritrea’s sex trade. Each year, tens of thousands of Eritrean workers migrate in search of work, particularly to the Gulf States and Egypt, where some become victims of forced labor, primarily in domestic servitude. Smaller numbers of Eritrean women and girls are subjected to sex trafficking inside the country and potentially in Gulf countries.

 Over the past decade, large numbers of Eritreans have led the country to indwork or escape indeinite conscription. During the past three years, an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Eritreans have escaped to refugee camps in eastern Sudan each month;

traffickers seek out vulnerable Eritreans in the camps, some of whom were extor ted and tor t ured as they were t ranspor ted through the Sinai Peninsula. A signiicant number of leeing Eritreans encounter serious risks of being shot and killed by Eritrean authorities, or forcibly repatriated to Eritrea, where they are at times tortured or killed by the Eritrean government.

 Adolescent children that attempt to leave Eritrea have been forced into military service despite being younger than the minimum service age of 18. As part of the requirements to complete t heir senior year of high school, adolescent children are also sent to Sawa, Eritrea’s military academy, prior to their eighteenth birthday. Over the reporting period, there were numerous reports of Eritrean nationals being brutalized by smugglers operating in the Sinai; victims were often chained together, whipped and beaten regularly, deprived of food, raped,  and  forced  to  do  construction  work  at  g unpoint  at smugglers’ personal homes. Eritrean refugees were concerned that Eritrean and Sudanese officials colluded with smugglers to abduct Eritreans from Sudanese refugee camps, targeting those refugees that voiced dissent against the government or were prominent military igures.

 The Government of the State of Eritrea does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of traficking and is not making signiicant efforts to do so. The Eritrean government does not operate with transparency and did not publish data or statistics regarding any effort to combat human traficking; it did not respond to requests to provide information for this report.  ‑ ­    

Recommendations for Eritrea:  Pass and enforce  a comprehensive anti - trafficking  statute that includes prohibitions against forced labor; launch a campaign to increase the general public’s awareness of human traficking at the local, regional, and national levels; cease indeinite conscription and the use of threats and physical punishment for non-compliance; cease sending children to Sawa, the military school; allow international NGOs to assist in combating traficking in Eritrea; institute traficking awareness training for diplomats posted overseas; provide training to all levels of government, particularly law enforcement oficials,

on identifying and responding to traficking crimes; and in partnership with NGOs  or religious  entities,  ensure  the provision of short-term protective services to child traficking victim