VZCZCXRO4442
RR RUEHMA RUEHPA
DE RUEHNM #0026/01 0101528
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 101528Z JAN 07
FM AMEMBASSY NIAMEY
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3174
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEHAS/AMEMBASSY ALGIERS 3332
RUEHTRO/AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 NIAMEY 000026 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT: FOR AF/W, BACHMAN; G/TIP FOR ZEITLIN; AF/RSA FOR 
HARPOLE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SMIG SOCI KCRM KWMN NG
SUBJECT: TIP IN A TRANSIT TOWN: AGADEZ, NIGER 
 
NIAMEY 00000026  001.2 OF 005 
 
 
------- 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶1.  During recent travel to Agadez, the principal city of 
northern Niger, Poloff explored the town's oldest industry - 
trafficking. Whether in items as benign as cars or as 
dangerous as drugs and guns, Agadez excels at both legal and 
illicit cross-border trade. The movement of persons is a 
perennial component of that trade. However, it is difficult 
to distinguish unwitting Trafficking in Persons (TIP) victims 
in hock to traffickers from economic migrants moving of their 
own volition and on their own dime. Indeed, the latter may 
become the former at any point in their travel. 
 
¶2.  TIP is linked to every other form of illicit activity in 
the region, from prostitution and cigarette smuggling to 
bandit attacks on tourists. However, it is hard to tell how 
big a role it plays vis a vis other activities. After all, 
trafficking of all kinds is big business in this old caravan 
town, as it has been for over 400 years. The prospect of 
economic gain in the world's least developed country 
motivates both smugglers and the economic migrants in their 
charge. By virtue of their extent and long history, these 
problems are intractable but subject to interventions at the 
margins. Even in the absence of sufficient resources, 
Government of Niger (GON) officials and local NGOs are using 
their knowledge of this age-old commerce to minimize some of 
its human costs. END SUMMARY 
 
 
--------------------------- 
MAPPING THE MIGRATION ROUTE 
--------------------------- 
 
¶3.  Agadez is Niger's gateway to the Sahara desert, North 
Africa, and Europe. Along with Gao in Mali, Agadez shares the 
distinction of trafficking capital of the Sahel. As in the 
caravan days, simple geography dictates routes. The most 
direct route from much of coastal West Africa to North Africa 
is via Niger and Libya. For centuries, the old caravan town 
served as the logical jumping off point for travelers 
motivated by economic interests of every sort. In that, the 
city has remained consistent. 
 
¶4.  While trade in dates, gold, and salt has given way to 
more modern and illicit fare - cigarettes, arms, drugs, cars 
and people - much else has remained the same. While Niger's 
principal north-south axis, the "uranium highway," runs from 
Niamey through Birni N'Konni, Tahoua, and Agadez toward the 
mines at Arlit the migration route follows the old caravan 
trail 250 miles to the east. Police and NGO contacts were 
unanimous on this point - the principal trafficking/migration 
route through Niger starts south of Zinder, at the Nigerian 
border north of Kano. It then moves north through Zinder city 
and region, and arrives in Agadez via Aderbissinat in central 
Niger. 
 
¶5.  Agadez is a "resting point" for migrants and TIP victims, 
who have usually traveled there from coastal West Africa. In 
Agadez, many stop to seek the funds to continue their 
journey. Some wait for up to three months in the hope of 
obtaining an Algerian tourist visa that would allow them to 
go north legally, and by bus. Contacts informed us that the 
Western Union outlet in Agadez does a thriving business by 
providing migrants with funds sent by their families. On the 
other hand, Regional Police Commissioner Rachid Assoumane 
noted that 70% of the city's prostitutes were migrants from 
Niger's southern neighbors - Togo, Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, 
Nigeria - suggesting the diverse means and situations of the 
migrants who wash up in town. Local contacts note that many 
migrants spend months in Agadez while seeking the funds to 
continue north. 
 
¶6.  From Agadez, most migrants and TIP victims move toward 
Libya, sometimes by way of southern Algeria. A 275 mile trek 
on desert trails brings them to Bilma and Dirkou, small 
Nigerien towns 230 miles south of the Libyan border. From 
Bilma / Dirkou, they travel across the border by pick-up 
truck or jeep. These small, fast vehicles are driven by local 
operators and may hold as many as 33 people. Typically, the 
drivers will leave their clients on the outskirts of Libyan 
or Algerian towns at night, allowing them to enter town on 
foot, and seek onward transportation there. The voyage from 
Agadez to the area of Djanet, Algeria can take four or five 
days, and prices vary widely depending on a migrant's 
experience, bargaining ability, and willingness to wait. 
Police and local officials claimed that Nigerien migrants and 
 
NIAMEY 00000026  002.2 OF 005 
 
 
TIP victims pay traffickers between 45,000 and 50,000 CFA 
($90.00 and $100.00) to move them between their homes in the 
Tahoua region and Libya. COMMENT: If true, this would suggest 
that traffickers are operating on very small margins, as that 
is about the price one would pay to go via conventional 
transport. END COMMENT 
 
¶7.  Others, particularly third country nationals with few 
ties and little local knowledge, are less fortunate. In some 
cases, Libyan traffickers take passports and identity 
documents from their customers, who must pay their debt in 
order to get them back. Local contacts estimated that third 
country nationals pay between $200 and $300 for their trips 
north. During Poloff's trip to Agadez, a relevant article 
appeared on the front page of the town's paper: "Air Info." 
Featuring pictures of broken down trucks heavily laden with 
persons, and a group holding a sign saying: "Ghana Community 
Dirkou," the article noted that countless migrants made their 
way north through the region each year, and stressed the fact 
that many were defrauded by unscrupulous "one man tour 
agencies." It also stressed other dangers: breakdowns, 
capture by the Libyans, and death in the desert. The article 
noted that many migrants make four of five attempts before 
either succeeding or giving up. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
ASSESSING THE ORIGINS & TAKING A LOOK AT A MIGRANT TOWN 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
 
¶8. Such motivation is comprehensible. While Niger itself is 
the source of relatively few TIP victims or migrants, the 
conditions that motivate Nigeriens to move may actually be 
harsher than those facing the coastal West Africans. When 
asked to comment on the origins of Nigerien migrants, Agadez 
authorities listed several unsurprising sources: Tahoua 
Region, especially the departments of Abalak and 
Tchintabaraden; Northern Zinder Region; and, Diffa. From 
their description, it seems that Niger's "migration belt" 
overlaps with its "red band" of food insecurity (so called 
because of its alarming depiction on the color-coded maps of 
food security donors). This agro-pastoral belt, which runs 
the length of the country, lies between 60 and 120 miles 
north of the southern border. It is the zone hardest hit by 
periodic droughts and by the seasonal food insecurity that 
afflicts the country every year. On the way to Agadez, Poloff 
stopped in the red band, visiting a town long known as a 
source of economic migrants, and witnessed some of the push 
and pull factors motivating people to go abroad. 
 
¶9.  The town of Illela, located south of the central Nigerien 
city of Tahoua, is famous for "exode," or seasonal migration. 
While Illelans seem to go to Cote d,Ivoire rather than North 
Africa, their motivations for moving are the same as those of 
their neighbors. Poverty and weak agricultural yields, poor 
health care, education, and infrastructure combine to paint a 
pretty bleak picture. People enjoy few local opportunities to 
supplement their income. At the end of each agricultural 
season, Illelans head south to work as itinerate salesmen or 
seasonal laborers in Cote d,Ivoire. As much as regional 
poverty might "push" Illelans to do this, the incentives that 
"pull" them toward the coast were equally evident during our 
visit. Illela's "Quartier Plateau" neighborhood featured new 
concrete houses, conspicuous in a town of baked mud "banco" 
architecture. Locals pointed them out as products of the 
exode - built by people rather like themselves who had gone 
south for several seasons and made it big. These status 
symbols represent both the success of past migrants and the 
aspirations of many to come. 
 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM & SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS FOR AGADEZ 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
¶10.  Poloff's December 12 meeting with Rachid Assoumane, 
Chief of the National Police for the Agadez Region, addressed 
the law-enforcement and social implications of the migrant 
wave. Ambient crime levels in the city of Agadez are low by 
western standards but migrants both contribute to this 
problem and have to live with it. In 2006, youth crime in 
this city of 100,000 people consisted of 58 thefts, four 
attempted thefts, 33 batteries, 17 assaults, and 7 cases of 
driving without a license. The Police Chief attributed most 
of this problem to drug abuse - mostly marijuana smoking and 
glue sniffing - and poverty. In spite of foreigners' 
prominence in some criminal activities, like prostitution, 
few Agadezians seem to blame migrants for crime, and there 
appears to be little social tension between natives and those 
traveling through. 
 
NIAMEY 00000026  003.2 OF 005 
 
 
 
¶11.  The Chief noted that nine human traffickers had been 
arrested this year. Most, however, have gotten off with 
relatively light punishment due to Niger's lack of an 
anti-TIP law. Three were released without being charged, 
while six others were arrested and charged with the abduction 
of minors. Of the six traffickers charged, four were released 
when the Agadez Regional Court found no grounds for 
prosecution. Two remain in custody awaiting trial as of this 
writing. NOTE: Niger's lack of a dedicated anti-Trafficking 
in Persons law has taken its toll on local efforts to punish 
traffickers. Other laws, such as those on child abduction, 
can be applied but often fail to yield convictions in cases 
where parents have chosen to give their children to someone - 
even pay them - for transport north. Post contacts in the 
Ministry of Justice informed Poloff that Niger's draft 
anti-TIP law has been submitted to the Council of Ministers 
for approval, after which it will be submitted to the 
National Assembly for adoption in the spring. END NOTE 
 
¶12.   The lack of an anti-TIP law is only one legal factor 
complicating the fight against human trafficking. Victims are 
hard to distinguish from other migrants, and migrants as a 
group have every right to be in Niger; as long as they have 
an ECOWAS National Identity card, they need neither a visa 
nor a passport and have a legal right to travel within any 
ECOWAS member country. Given the composition of the migrant 
wave, this poses problems for few. Chief Assoumane argued 
that Nigeriens, who seem to go north for a season of labor 
and then return to their farms, are fewer in number than the 
coastal West Africans who go north to get to Europe and stay. 
Representatives of the Gendarmerie (paramilitary police 
charged with rural law enforcement) and National Force for 
Intervention and Security (FNIS: border security force) 
agreed with Assoumane, and estimated that thousands of 
persons are moving north through Niger every year. Given the 
porous Nigerien border, the adroitness of the smugglers, and 
the paucity of police, few will ever be interdicted. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
THE COMMITTEE ON REPATRIATION: ARTISTS OF THE POSSIBLE 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶13.  While Niger has had limited success in staunching the 
migrant flow toward the north, neither Libya nor Algeria 
honor the ECOWAS ID card, and both have reasonably effective 
border security forces. Consequently, many migrants end up 
seeing Agadez twice. Hundreds are captured and turned back 
each year. Irrespective of their national origins, they wind 
up in Niger. The Regional Government of Agadez attempts to 
respond to the needs of repatriated persons, even though it 
has few resources even for its own people. Through Agadez 
Region's "Committee on Repatriation," the government does its 
best to welcome and reintegrate migrants and TIP victims. In 
a meeting with Poloff on December 14, the committee's members 
discussed their work, migration and trafficking, and the many 
challenges to which they attempt to engineer solutions. 
 
¶14.  The Secretary General of the Region of Agadez chairs the 
committee. Other members include the Regional Chiefs of the 
National Police and the Gendarmerie (paramilitary police 
force), and the Social Development Director for the Region. 
Established in 2005, the committee has received some material 
support from UNICEF - 1,000 water containers, 1,000 bars of 
soap, and 1,000 blankets. As of December 2006, the Committee 
had dealt with approximately 450 migrants. NOTE: It is 
difficult to say how many of these persons were trafficking 
victims versus independent migrants. The committee devotes 
more attention to aiding returnees than to investigating 
their circumstances, and most information about them is 
anecdotal. However, while no one was able to say whether 
trafficking victims were included in the figure, it seems 
highly probable that some were. END NOTE. 
 
¶15.  Aside from the materials given by UNICEF, the Committee 
has few of its own. The Direction of Social Development, the 
Red Cross, and the Agadez Youth Center all serve as temporary 
shelter space for returnees, most of whom claim to have no 
money or food. The Police work with local transporters and 
truckers' unions to organize free transportation south for 
the returnees. Most leave Agadez on the tops of 
tractor-trailers, heading for southern Niger and the border. 
No one can be sure how many jump off at the next stop, turn 
north, and try their luck again. 
 
¶16.  Poloff noted many signs of charity on the part of the 
committee members, who have given small sums of money and 
food out of their own pockets to help many returnees. Absent 
 
NIAMEY 00000026  004.2 OF 005 
 
 
major international efforts to assist the committee, they 
cannot do much more than that. While the committee members 
complained that Europeans were providing assistance to the 
migrant repatriation efforts of "front line states" like 
Algeria and Libya while neglecting efforts in Niger and Mali, 
they reserved most of their criticism for Libya. The 
destination for most of the migrants passing through Niger, 
Libya was widely criticized by the committee for its policy 
of rounding up every migrant it could find and, irrespective 
of the persons' nationality, dumping them all across the 
border in Niger. Often left far from any source of 
sustenance, these returnees risked death or injury until 
discovered by Nigerien authorities and shipped south to 
Agadez or Bilma/Dirkou. 
 
¶17.  The committee contrasted this approach with that of 
Algeria, which drew considerable praise for border policing 
that was both effective and humane. Algerians, Poloff was 
told, keep the Nigerien consul informed and coordinate the 
hand-off of migrants at the border. Participants 
characterized Algeria as more "respectful of the rights and 
dignity," of migrants. The importance of this was underscored 
by the group's sober estimation that at least 75 persons had 
died in the desert during 2006 while trying to cross 
illegally. 
 
¶18.  Like the police, the Committee members found it 
difficult to distinguish TIP victims from other migrants. 
Children were a special case, and could be singled out when 
traveling without their parents. However, the committee was 
aware of what constitutes trafficking and was able to cite a 
prominent incident. In one recent case, girls from Nigeria 
were brought as far as Agadez by a trafficker, who then told 
them to prostitute themselves in order to raise money for the 
trip north. Not counting on such treatment, these migrants 
turned TIP victims sought help from local police, who were 
able to arrange for their return to Nigeria. 
 
¶19.  COMMENT: Poloff commended the committee on its good 
work, and suggested that it could contact the Embassy of 
Nigeria in Niamey for assistance, at least with Nigerian 
victims. Post has discussed TIP with the Embassy of Nigeria 
in the past, and found Embassy staff from the Ambassador on 
down to be conversant with the problem and dedicated to 
helping their citizens with repatriation when necessary. This 
sort of partnership can help the committee to better address 
the needs of TIP victims, as distinct from migrants. Victims, 
like the Nigerian girls discovered this year, are those who 
got more than they bargained for and are looking for a way 
out. Efforts to help and repatriate them are likely to be 
appreciated and cooperated with. The sort of help the 
committee offers, however, is of little interest to most 
returnees. Having come all the way from the coast, few are 
returned to Agadez by choice, and most undoubtedly prefer to 
have another go at the border to a truck ride south. END 
COMMENT. 
 
------------------------------------------ 
UNICEF & AFETEN: HELPING CHILD TIP VICTIMS 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶20.  While children may be just as determined as adults to 
move north and seek their fortune, they are more easily 
identified and more often genuine TIP victims - actually 
under the control of someone who is profiting from their 
movement. Moreover, at least in the case of Nigeriens, the 
GON can compel their return to their parents. With a G/TIP 
ESF funded grant, UNICEF and a local NGO partner, AFETEN, are 
attempting to reach out to child TIP victims in Agadez, 
Bilma, and Dirkou. The project has thus far trained a team of 
16 workers at the Agadez bus-station to identify possible 
child victims of TIP, and to work with the NGO and the police 
to rescue them. During the course of the year, this 
"vigilance committee" has identified 14 children and 
contributed to the identification and arrest of several 
traffickers. Traffickers have responded to this strategy by 
shifting their locations, and attempting to avoid the 
station. However, by virtue of AFETEN's close cooperation 
with transporters and their unions, the "vigilance 
committee's" reach extends to most transport axes. Thanks to 
its close cooperation with the police, AFETEN continues to 
succeed in identifying and rehabilitating TIP victims in 
Agadez, Bilma, and Dirkou. 
 
¶21.  Children are taken to AFETEN's shelter, are interviewed, 
and receive food, shelter, and elementary counseling. The 
children are then taken home to their villages (so far all 
have come from Tahoua region) where their parents and 
 
NIAMEY 00000026  005.2 OF 005 
 
 
traditional chiefs are sensitized to the dangers of 
trans-Saharan travel and TIP. Recognizing the link between 
trafficking and poverty, the project also uses microcredit to 
help families meet their material needs. NOTE: The focus on 
training for children, communities, transport workers, and 
the authorities dovetails with other NGOs' efforts in this 
direction. Timidria, better known for its efforts to 
eliminate traditional slavery, started a publicity campaign 
in 2006 to inform migrants of the dangers facing them in the 
desert. While neither AFETEN, Timidria, nor UNICEF hope to 
curb the urge to migrate north, all hope to minimize the 
human cost of the "exode," and foster understanding of its 
risks. END NOTE 
 
---------------------------------- 
COMMENT: CONFRONTING NORTH NIGER'S 
TRAFFICKING RACKET; WHAT IS TIP, 
WHAT IS NOT, AND WHAT CAN ONE DO 
ABOUT IT? 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶22.  Smuggling of every kind is a big and occasionally 
violent business in Agadez. When asked about new houses going 
up, locals will often identify the builder as a "trafficker," 
of some kind. Indeed, smuggling and connected crime formed a 
backdrop of sorts to our visit. A Nigerien customs officer 
was shot and killed while attempting to intercept a drug or 
cigarette trafficker's vehicle. French tourists were robbed 
at gunpoint in the scenic Air Mountains. Police commented on 
foreign prostitutes and the incidence of street crime. These 
actions are linked by their actors. Many Nigeriens suggest 
that former Tuareg rebels, using weapons, trucks and know-how 
acquired during their (1991 - 1995) rebellion against the 
Nigerien state are among the most effective and politically 
sensitive smugglers. 
 
¶23.  While trafficking in general my be a massive affair, 
exploitive Trafficking in Persons (characterized, inter alia, 
by passports retained, usurious fees charged, forced labor, 
or sexual exploitation) is only one segment of a vast market. 
Indeed, most of what goes on in northern Niger might be more 
accurately described as the transportation of willing illegal 
immigrants for money. Most of the Nigerien operators who do 
this are local people with pick-up trucks, who have neither 
the network nor the inclination to keep someone in bondage to 
them. Even at the higher end - $300 - traffickers' reported 
fees do not seem so high that a family or individual client 
could not pay them. Neither the authorities nor the NGOs were 
able to identify many cases where persons had been exploited, 
at least in Niger. Police had no evidence to suggest that 
foreign prostitutes in Agadez were working for anyone other 
than themselves. Many migrants may find themselves as victims 
of exploitive human trafficking only once they reach their 
destination. Indeed, we do not know what happens to these 
persons upon their arrival in Libya, Algeria, or Europe. 
Moreover, as few of the migrants are Nigerien, stories of 
exploitation may reach relatives and villages in coastal 
Africa before they are recounted in Niger. Being neither the 
principal source nor the principal destination of migrants 
and TIP victims, Agadez raises almost as many questions as it 
answers. These questions, in turn, make it much harder to 
arrive at any estimate of how many genuine TIP victims float 
in the migrant wave. 
 
¶24.  No one will ever be able to disentangle all of these 
questions from each other. Africa's poverty and Europe's 
promise yield economic migration, which yields trafficking. 
Aside from obvious cases (children, or TIP victims who seek 
police help) the regions' governments will be unable to 
identify most victims or arrest most traffickers, just as 
they will be unable to stop the movement of their citizens. 
For those who are discovered or who seek help, however, the 
Government of Niger and its NGO partners have both the will 
and some of the means necessary to assist. Continuing efforts 
to sensitize all parties - government authorities, NGOs, 
economic migrants, transporters, etc. - to the nature and 
danger of TIP will be helpful. If nothing else, such efforts 
could yield a savvier generation of economic migrants, better 
able to avoid exploitation by human traffickers while 
pursuing their dream of a better life. END COMMENT 
MINIMIZED CONSIDERED 
ALLEN