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RR RUEHMA RUEHPA
DE RUEHDK #0207/01 0501101
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 191101Z FEB 09
FM AMEMBASSY DAKAR
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1884
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC
RHMFIUU/DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY WASHDC
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 07 DAKAR 000207 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR G/TIP, DRL, PRM, INL, AF/W, AF/RSA, INR/AA 
STATE FOR USAID 
G-ACBLANK 
ACCRA FOR USAID/WA 
PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KTIP ELAB KCRM KFRD KWMN PGOV PHUM PREF SMIG SG
SUBJECT: SENEGAL: 2008 TIP REPORT 
 
¶1. (SBU) As was the case in previous years Senegal continues to 
devote, time, resources and attention to combating trafficking in 
persons. 
 
¶2. (U) responses are keyed to questions in reftel. 
Begin TIP report 
 
PARA 23: THE COUNTRY'S TIP SITUATION 
 
¶A. Information on trafficking is gathered from the government, NGOs, 
the media, security services and site visits by Embassy officers. 
Organizations working directly with trafficking victims such as the 
International Organization for Migrations (IOM) and the government's 
Ginndi center are very reliable.  Media and government sources are 
generally reliable. 
 
¶B. Senegal is a source, transit and destination country for children 
and women trafficked for the purposes of forced labor, begging and 
commercial sexual exploitation.  While there are no reliable 
statistics for the total extent of human trafficking in Senegal, a 
joint November 2007 report by UNICEF, the ILO and the World Bank 
said that there were 7,600 street children begging in Dakar alone 
and that 90 percent of them were talibes.  The report also said that 
95 percent of these children were either from out of Dakar or from 
outside the country.  Trafficking within the country is more 
prevalent than trans-border trafficking.  Boys who are students 
(talibe) at some Koranic schools are trafficked within the country 
for forced begging by their religious teachers (marabouts.   Women 
and girls are trafficked for domestic servitude.  Girls, and 
possibly adult women, are also trafficked internally for sexual 
exploitation.  Trans-nationally, boys are trafficked to Senegal from 
The Gambia, Mali, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea for forced begging by 
unscrupulous religious teachers.   Senegalese women and girls are 
trafficked to neighboring countries, the Middle East and Europe for 
domestic servitude and possibly for sexual exploitation. 
 
Senegal's trafficking problems are both internal and transnational 
and no one group or gender is targeted. 
 
Young Senegalese boys continue to be trafficked from rural villages 
to urban centers for exploitative begging at some Koranic schools 
(daaras).   Young boys are trafficked to Senegal from The Gambia, 
Guinea-Bissau, Mali and Guinea for the same purpose. 
 
Young girls are trafficked from poor villages in the regions of 
Diourbel, Fatick, Kaolack, Louga, Kolda, Saint Louis (Fouta), Thies 
and Ziguinchor to urban centers to work as underage maids.  Young 
girls from both urban and rural areas are involved in illegal 
prostitution, which NGOs claim always involves an adult pimp who 
facilitates their commercial sex transactions or houses them. 
 
The issue of trafficking of adult women remains hazy .  Police 
officials, international organizations and NGOs have indicated that 
trafficking of women for use in prostitution occurs in Senegal, but 
there is little concrete data to support this.  NGOs working with 
illegal prostitutes have provided anecdotal evidence.  ENDA Sante, a 
Senegalese NGO, treats prostitutes for STIs through a mobile clinic 
program.  According to their staff, they continued to see many women 
from nearby African countries --Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, 
Liberia, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea --practicing illegal prostitution 
in Senegal. 
 
Association AWA, an NGO providing health care and vocational 
training to women in prostitution, reported that physically abused 
women occasionally come in to be treated.  They are sometimes 
accompanied by another person to get tested for HIV/AIDS.  AWA 
believes some of these women may be trafficking victims and the 
persons accompanying them may be traffickers.  AWA also said they 
see many female prostitutes from Liberia, Ghana, Sierra Leone and 
Nigeria.  Last year AWA gave 625 sex workers psychological 
assistance, and 510 medical assistance. 
 
¶C.  Children trafficked to Senegal are forced into exploitative 
begging.  Separated from their families and support systems, 
children must choose between staying with their trafficker or a life 
on the street as runaways.  Many children are too young to remember 
with any detail the village from which they came and forget their 
families.  Newspapers have reported on cases of physical abuse 
committed by marabouts against their students.  Koranic teachers who 
abuse their students have been prosecuted under TIP laws and sent to 
prison. 
 
Young prostitutes are either sent by rural parents to urban areas to 
 
DAKAR 00000207  002 OF 007 
 
 
find work, or leave urban homes to work on the streets.  While 
parents do not send their daughters to become prostitutes, with rare 
exceptions, NGOs working with underage prostitutes claim parents are 
aware of the fact their daughters prostitute themselves because they 
leave the house at night, and they have an otherwise unexplainable 
source of income.  Almost all underage prostitutes have Senegalese 
pimps who entice their victims with promises of money and work.  NGO 
ENDA ECOPOLE has created a center where young domestic girls can get 
vocational training after work, in tie dye and sewing, as well as a 
basic education.  These activities also prevent girls from wandering 
the streets at night and being targeted as potential victims for 
trafficking. 
 
Weak civil administration, porous borders and the ease of obtaining 
fake identity documents, the abundance of foreign tourists and 
potential visa sponsors, freedom of movement between Economic 
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) member states without the 
need to present a passport, direct flights from Senegal to Europe 
and national stability entice adult women from other African 
countries to come to Senegal for sexual purposes.  If these women 
are trafficked, it is unclear who their traffickers are, or what 
methods they use to approach victims.  NGOs think that while some 
Senegalese women could be trafficked to North Africa, Europe and 
the 
Middle East for sexual purposes, as has been reported in the past, 
most of them tend to remain in Senegal. 
 
¶D. As mentioned above young girls and boys are the most vulnerable 
victims. The situation of older girls and women who end up in 
prostitution is somewhat more nebulous, but they can still be 
classified as a vulnerable group, although much less so than young 
girls and boys. 
 
¶E.  Although trafficking in Senegal still remains informal and done 
by individuals, a network that was trafficking women from Senegal to 
the sub-region and to Lebanon to work as domestics was dismantled 
and its leader, Victor Naja, was arrested and is currently in jail 
awaiting trial.  Aside from this one case, girls sent away to work 
as maids often work in family members' or family friends' homes.  In 
such cases, poor rural families expect money will be sent back to 
the home to help provide badly needed income to buy food and 
clothes.  In most cases the families receive the money when the 
trafficker returns to the village.   These relationships and a 
family's expectation of income make it very difficult for young 
girls, who are sometimes sexually abused, to leave their jobs.  For 
child victims, parents who entrust young boys into the care of a 
Koranic teacher, or send a female child to work as a domestic, 
oftentimes know the trafficker.  Therefore, parents are as 
responsible as teachers in the trafficking of persons.  Marabouts 
frequently return to their home villages and receive children from 
parents hoping to provide them a Koranic education.  This kind of 
education is more valued than a secular education by the Senegalese, 
especially in the formative years of between 4-7 years.  Generally, 
parents are not offered money to turn young boys over to Koranic 
teachers, and young boys are never sold. 
 
PARA 24: SETTING THE SCENE FOR THE GOVERNMENT'S ANTI-TIP EFFORTS 
 
¶A. The government does acknowledge that trafficking is a problem. 
 
¶B. The GOS has continued to show significant political will to 
combat human trafficking.  The GOS-established Ginndi Center has 
maintained its intake of at-risk children and continues to expand 
its operations.  The Ministry of Family, Social Development and 
Women's Entrepreneurship runs a program for daaras, in which they 
provide teaching aids, submit language components, train 
Koranic teachers, offer school supplies and run awareness campaigns. 
 In addition, the Direction for Child Protection organized a series 
of training seminars for journalists and security forces based in 
the regions of Kolda, Tambacounda, Ziguinchor, Matam, Saint Louis 
and Kaolack.  These training sessions were conducted by social and 
labor workers, gendarmes, policemen, magistrates, and civil society. 
 The Ministry of Justice also provided human trafficking 
sensitization training for 70 judges in 2008.  The judges were from 
courts in Dakar, St Louis and the Court of Appeals in Kaolack. 
 
The Criminal Analysis Unit continues to add trafficking related 
offenses into its electronic database.  However even though human 
trafficking is an offense under domestic law, few such cases are 
included in the database.  The unit is associated with INTERPOL but 
lacks financial and human resources to fully devote to trafficking 
issues.  Although specialized police squads have been posted in 
border regions, the Commissioner of Police noted that police lack 
 
DAKAR 00000207  003 OF 007 
 
 
the financial incentive and time to actively pursue trafficking 
cases and input data into the database. 
 
The Interior Ministry Special Commissariat to help fight sex tourism 
has set up an office ("Brigade de Mineurs" - Under Age squads) in 
Dakar.  Local police and gendarmerie say they need more cooperation 
from citizens who are the only ones that can identify the houses 
where pedophilic tourists live.  They recommend more awareness 
campaigns to inform people about the dangers of pedophilia and its 
effects to children.  The Ministry also has a special tourism police 
unit (Direction of Regulation and Control) with one office in 
Dakar. 
 
As part of a Time-Bound program with the ILO, Senegal works toward 
the eradication of child begging, underage domestic work, and 
underage prostitution as three of Senegal's worst forms of child 
labor. 
 
¶C.  Senegal is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranking 
153rd on the UN's Human Development Index, and has limited ability 
to effectively prosecute, prevent trafficking or protect trafficking 
victims.  Police are underpaid and lack adequate equipment and 
resources to effectively do their jobs, while gendarmes guarding the 
borders are few and far between.  In addition to its public revenue 
problems, the government's bureaucratic structure and reliance on 
highly centralized decision-making stand in the way of reform. 
Corruption exists throughout government and, notably, in law 
enforcement.  Trafficking represents only one of many vexing social 
and economic problems with which the Government must contend.  The 
fact that recruiters of young boys exploit a legitimate, socially 
prevalent desire for a religious education provides "cover" within 
local communities, and decreases the possibility of government 
intervention. 
 
¶D.  The GOS does not have the systematic means in place to monitor 
anti-trafficking efforts and does not submit reports.  However, the 
Ministry of Family and Human Rights Commissioner continues to lead a 
sustained and somewhat organized effort to fight trafficking and 
child begging.  The Human Rights Commissioner is the focal point and 
the coordination agency for all ministries involved in working 
against trafficking in persons, and the Ministry of Family is the 
executive and operational body that executes activities on 
trafficking. 
 
PARA 25: INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF TRAFFICKERS 
 
¶A.  On April 29, 2005, the National Assembly unanimously adopted a 
comprehensive anti-TIP law.  Under the law, those who recruit, 
transport, transfer or harbor persons, whether by means of violence, 
fraud, abuse of authority or otherwise for the purposes of sexual 
exploitation, labor, forced servitude or slavery are subject to 
punishment of 5 to 10 years' imprisonment and a fine of between USD 
10,000 and 40,000 (5 to 20 million CFA francs (CFAF)).  When the 
violation involves torture, barbarism, the removal of human organs 
or exposing the victim to a risk of death or injury, jail time can 
range from 10 to 30 years imprisonment. 
 
Though Senegal now has an effective legal tool for fighting human 
trafficking, the law has been used primarily to combat those who 
smuggle illegal immigrants from Senegal to Spain.  The anti-TIP law 
has also been used to convict Koranic teachers who have abused 
talibes. 
 
Other statutes have been used to prosecute and convict traffickers. 
For instance, Senegal's constitution forbids slavery, the labor code 
prohibits forced labor, and begging is illegal under the penal code. 
 Senegalese have not historically viewed exploitative begging as 
slavery or forced labor, and the anti- begging law is not enforced 
against any beggars, trafficking victims or otherwise. 
 
Pimping and soliciting customers are illegal.  Current laws 
regulating prostitution yield arrests, including arrests of foreign 
illegal prostitutes, underage prostitutes and pimps.  NGOs working 
with prostitutes, however, claim the problem is bigger than official 
statistics suggest, especially in the southeast of the country in 
the Kedougou region where gold mining and porous borders attracts 
many prostitutes.  The HIV rate in that zone is estimated to be at 
least three times higher than the national average. 
 
A few Koranic teachers who physically abuse their students are 
arrested and prosecuted each year.  In most cases, students were 
beaten for failing to meet their daily begging requirements.  NGOs 
assisting Koranic school students explain that Koranic teachers who 
 
DAKAR 00000207  004 OF 007 
 
 
violently enforce daily begging requirements are usually the most 
exploitative and most likely to be traffickers rather than bona fide 
Koranic teachers.  At the Ginndi Center, the Family Ministry 
received students who had been beaten by their Koranic teachers.  No 
cases have been reported this year. 
 
¶B.  Any offense against the decency of a child is punishable by 
imprisonment for 2 to 5 years and in some aggravated cases up to 10 
years.  Procuring a minor for prostitution is punishable by 
imprisonment for 2 to 5 years and a fine between USD 575 and 7,600 
(300,000 and 4,000,000 CFAF).  The penalties for sex trafficking 
(whether for a minor or an adult) are more severe. 
 
¶C.   As of June 2007, ILO reported that 7,600 children in Dakar, and 
5,000 from the interior and neighboring countries were working in 
Senegal. 
 
¶D.  The GOS prosecuted individuals responsible for rape, pedophilia, 
prostitution and abuse of talibes children. 
Penalties for rape vary between 5 to 10 years imprisonment and a 
fine of USD 400 (200,000 CFAF) and 6,000 USD (3,000,000 CFAF). 
Penalties for violence against children can vary form 5 to 10 years 
imprisonment and a fine between USD 11,000 (2,000,000 CFAF) to USD 
44,000 (20,000,000 CFAF).  Jail sentences range between 10 to 30 
years in cases of torture.  People who organizing child begging risk 
5 years of prison and a fine between 
USD 1,000 (500,000 CFAF) to USD 4,000 (2,000,000 CFAF).  The 
Population and Reproductive Healthcare Institute of the University 
of Dakar reported that among abused children, sixty five percent 
have been raped.  The same study discovered that violence against 
children occur in different locations: forty five percent of child 
sexual abuse occurs inside the family compound; seventeen percent in 
the streets; ten percent at school; and six percent in the daara. 
As said earlier, parents are more often than not complicit in 
trafficking. 
 
¶E. According to Brigade des Mineurs, there were no reports of 
traffickers being arrested in 2008. 
 
¶F.  GOS representatives attend NGO events on trafficking-related and 
child protection themes, which helps generate greater turnout and 
public awareness of Senegal's trafficking problems.  The Ministry of 
Family, under the Department of Child Protection, has continued Save 
the Children funded training seminars hosted by the Center for 
Judicial Training to educate policemen, gendarmes, social and 
hospital workers, judges and lawyers and civil society organizations 
about the dangers of child trafficking and the actions that need to 
be taken to stop it.  The Ginndi center staff also receives training 
on the dissemination of the anti-TIP law, and has created a watch 
and alert committee that continue to implement citizen education 
programs.  Meanwhile, a database system called Connexions Sans 
Frontiers which is supported by the Ministry of Family includes a 
training module for the ten associations that are utilizing this 
computerized system to keep track of trafficked children. 
 
¶G.  Senegalese and Malian authorities continued to repatriate Malian 
children.  The GOS works regularly with foreign security services on 
clandestine immigration and human smuggling cases.  In 2008 the 
Senegalese Ministry for Families along with the Malian government 
and the ILO implemented a 12 month anti-TIP project encompassing 
Senegal, Mali, the Ivory Coast, Guinea and Burkina Faso.  The 
project collected information on the parameters of regional 
trafficking and organized 4 workshops that trained 60 individuals 
involved in the fight against trafficking (In Burkina Faso between 
23-25 June, in Dakar between 7-9 July, in Conakry between 14-16 July 
and in Abidjan Between 11-13 August).  In December 2008, 68 best 
practices in the fight against trafficking were indentified and 
validated for implementation by the aforementioned countries.  Last 
year IOM in conjunction with the Ginndi center and Empire Des 
Enfants repatriated or reintegrated 119 children in total.  47 were 
returned to Guinea-Bissau, 3 to Mali, 1 to Mauritania and 1 to The 
Gambia.  The remainder were all Senegalese and returned to their 
families. 
 
¶H.  The GOS can extradite individuals but has not done so for 
trafficking purposes. 
 
¶I.  There is some evidence of government tolerance of trafficking 
for forced begging on a local or institutional level. 
 
¶J.  No GOS officials are known to have been involved in 
trafficking. 
 
 
DAKAR 00000207  005 OF 007 
 
 
¶K.  Prostitution is legal in Senegal.  To legally practice 
prostitution, a woman must be at least 21 years old, register with 
the police, carry a valid sanitary card and test negative for STIs 
and HIV/AIDS.  Searching for clients and pimping are illegal. 
 
¶L. No Senegalese have been implicated or involved in investigations 
of trafficking by peacekeepers. 
 
¶M. The Ministry of Tourism has created a police unit to fight 
against sexual tourism in the principal tourist destinations of 
Dakar, Mbour, Ziguinchor, Fatick and Saint Louis.  No foreign 
Pedophiles were arrested in 2008. 
 
PARA 26:  PROTECTION AN ASSISTANCE TO VICTIMS 
--------------------------------------------- 
¶A.  The Ginndi Center provides various services to assist 
trafficking victims regardless of their country of origin. These 
services include medical treatment, family mediation and 
reconciliation, education, shelter and meals, and repatriation of 
children to their mother lands.  Last year, the center's child 
protection hotline received a total of 17,501 calls (971 calls from 
Koranic teachers alone, 912 calls from parents, 715 calls from 
children, 1,815 calls related to children, and 13,003 from unanimous 
callers concerning children and young girls and calls asking for 
information about the center).  The center assisted 949 children, 
all of whom received medical care. A total of 807 children were 
reunited with their families in Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Guinea 
Conakry and the Gambia; 69 children were trained in vocational 
centers (cooking, carpentry and sewing).  A total of 260 street 
interventions (20 interventions per month) were conducted to 
convince children to join the center.  In addition to that, the 
Ginndi center organized street interventions during the two major 
religious festivals of the year: The Magal of Touba (10 
interventions) and the Gamou of Tivaouane (10 interventions). 
 
¶B.  The Ginndi Center is used for trafficked and at-risk children. 
While the Government funds most operations, international partners 
provide some assistance.  The U.S. renovated the dormitories and 
built a wall around the center and provided medical equipment to the 
health unit. 
 
¶C. NGOS are not funded by the government.  They receive funds from 
international organizations and other donors such as embassies and 
foundations. 
 
¶D.  The Ministry of Family, under the association "Connexions Sans 
Frontieres" is using a computerized database to track trafficked 
children.  The GOS also works with IOM to help the return of 
children to their countries of origin. 
 
¶E.  The Government has provided basic shelter and medical assistance 
to victims, usually in coordination with NGOs and international 
organizations.  The government uses its Ginndi center to provide 
assistance to trafficked victims: shelter, food, medical care, 
vocational training and education, while waiting to repatriate 
victims to their home countries. 
 
¶F. All cases of trafficking are referred to the Ginndi center. 
Victims once identified as being trafficked by law enforcement 
officials are transferred to the center for eventual repatriation. 
 
¶G. Statistics provided by IOM indicate that 325 TIP victims were 
identified in 2008. 
 
¶H.  NGO AWA told Embassy that all sex worker victims of trafficking 
have an identification card that states they went through a 
compulsory AIDS screening test.  Likewise, the Brigade des Mineurs 
states that once indentified as victims of trafficking they are 
taken either to Le Dantec, Principal or Polyclinique hospitals for 
HIV/AIDS tests before further questioning. 
 
¶I. Victims' assistance in investigations is done behind close doors. 
 The rights of trafficked victims are generally respected. 
 
¶J.  According to the anti-TIP law, victims' rights are guaranteed 
under Articles 12 and 17.  Under the law, trafficking victims cannot 
be prosecuted for acts committed as a result of their being 
trafficked.  The law also protects the identity of victims and 
permits closed door testimony to encourage them to serve as 
witnesses.  They also are permitted to remain temporarily or 
permanently on national territory under the status of resident or 
refugee.  Victims have a right to an attorney.  If they cannot 
afford one, one will be provided to them. 
 
DAKAR 00000207  006 OF 007 
 
 
 
¶K.  The government has not yet provided any specialized training to 
government officials in identifying trafficking victims and 
assisting trafficked children.  The Ministry of Interior has applied 
for and technically received approval from Department for ICITAP 
funds that have yet to arrive to support such a program. 
 
¶M. The following is a non-exhaustive list of NGOs working with 
trafficking victims, their primary target group(s) and services: 
TOSTAN (Koranic students, health, education and nutrition); Avenir 
de l'Enfant (trafficked boys and underage prostitutes, shelter, 
nutrition, education and reconciliation); ATT (Koranic students, 
health and education); ENDA Sante (illegal prostitutes, health); 
ONDH (Children in prisons); Enda Ecoplole (Abused Domestic maids); 
and AWA (prostitutes, job training and health).  RADDHO, which works 
with Koranic students, underage prostitutes, and domestics, has a 
program for the Socio-Professional Integration of Young Migrant 
Victims of Trafficking.  Local authorities support NGO programs 
through their attendance at public events, collaboration on program 
strategies and activities and use of public spaces for activities. 
 
International organizations include: the World Bank (street 
children); UNICEF (underage domestics, underage prostitutes and 
Koranic students, education and job alternatives); IOM (trafficked 
children, coordinates repatriation of children); Save the Children 
Sweden (Koranic students, education); and ILO (underage domestics, 
underage prostitutes and Koranic students, education and job 
alternatives). 
 
PARA 27:  PREVENTION 
-------------------- 
 
¶A.  The Ministry of Family, through its Child Protection Office, 
conducted studies on TIP from January 2008 to January 2009 to 
collect information on TIP issues that resulted in the training of 
60 participants from the judicial court, security and police agents, 
government social workers, civil society and NGOs' representatives. 
In addition, a workshop was held in Dakar (July 7-9, 2008) focused 
on preventing TIP, protecting victims, and how to prosecute 
traffickers. 
 
¶B. The Ministry of Interior, through its Bureau for Investigations, 
works closely with Interpol to monitor immigration and emigration 
patterns for evidence of trafficking.  Organized clandestine 
migration by any means is punished for 5 to 10 years of imprisonment 
and a fine between USD 2,000 (1,000,000 CFAF)to USD 11,000 
(5,000,000 CFAF). 
 
¶C.  While there is no formal referral process between the GOS and 
NGOs, close working relationships between local government officials 
and NGOs active in their districts allow for information exchange 
and intervention in particular cases.  The Ministry of Family works 
closely with many Senegalese NGOs, such as RADDHO, Avenir de 
L'Enfant and La Lumiere.  The Interior and Justice Ministries have a 
program with IOM to monitor migration flows across Senegal's 
borders.  Justice Ministry officials worked with IOM staff in the 
past to organize and analyze criminal statistics.  A number of NGOs, 
such as ENDA Ecopole, which works primarily with women and children, 
and Avenir de l'Enfant report cooperative relations with some 
Senegalese officials, such as the Minister of Family, and the 
police, who often refer individual cases to such NGOs.  As part of 
its program against the worst forms of child labor, the Family 
Ministry, along with its department of youth protection, has held 
workshops and roundtables in Mbour, Dakar and other areas to fight 
child begging, underage domestic work and underage prostitution. 
 
¶D.  The GOS adopted the ECOWAS plan on trafficking of persons in 
¶2004.  The Director of the office of Child Rights Protection 
confirmed that the Ministry of Family, the Ministry of Justice and 
the Ministry of Interior worked together with the French Cooperation 
on a national action plan on trafficking that was finalized on June 
24, 2008.  The National Action Plan on Trafficking in Persons 
includes the following targets or goals: implementing prevention and 
awareness campaigns on TIP; protecting TIP victims; enhancing TIP 
law enforcement by the government (with a focus on securing national 
borders); TIP training for Customs, Police, Gendarmerie, health 
agents; the creation of a program to assist and reinsert victims 
back into society.  According to the plan, the High Commission for 
Human Rights will continue to coordinate TIP meetings.  This Action 
Plan is currently before the Cabinet awaiting approval. 
 
 
¶E.  The government has little or no means to reduce demand for 
 
DAKAR 00000207  007 OF 007 
 
 
commercial sex, as it has legalized it.  With 700 km of beach and 
more than 250 hotels, Senegal is a tourist country and this sector 
represents six percent of the national GDP.  Since colonial times, 
the government has had a health clinic in Dakar which now serves as 
a center where sex workers can receive care for STDs and get tested 
for HIV/AIDS. 
 
¶F. None that we are aware of. 
 
¶G. No Senegalese peacekeeping forces were reported to have been 
involved in trafficking. 
 
¶28. HEROES: Embassy Dakar is pleased to nominate Maitre Ndiame GAYE 
who is a magistrate working at the High Commissary of Human Rights. 
His office is the GOS focal point on trafficking in persons and 
monitors all other ministries dealing with the issue of 
trafficking: 
Ministry of Family and Women, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of 
Justice, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Tourism.  Each month, Me 
Gaye leads meetings to coordinate discussions and outlines the steps 
that need to be followed to better disseminate the anti-TIP law 
across the country and to urge GOS agencies to apply the law.  He 
works closely with national and international NGOs to find the best 
solutions to defeat this modern day slavery.  Apart from his job of 
coordinating this office, Me Gaye goes beyond the scope of his 
assigned work to help and assist GOS agencies and other entities to 
conduct successful TIP workshops.  He is very well appreciated by 
audiences because of the pertinence of his speeches. 
 
¶29. BEST PRACTICES 
------------------ 
Mission highlighted NGO AWA's work as a "best practice" in last 
year's reporting cable, but it was not included in the TIP Report. 
AWA is a Senegalese NGO that works with former and current 
prostitutes to provide medical care, vocational training and other 
services to encourage them to find an alternative profession.  AWA 
has launched a new project to train large numbers of women in 
cooking, sewing, tie-dye and other skills to generate income. It 
will also combine advocacy and awareness programs to teach women 
about the dangers of prostitution.  We are recommending this project 
as a best practice, because it is unique in its attempt to not only 
pull large numbers of vulnerable and possibly trafficked women out 
of the perilous field of prostitution but also provide them with 
another way to earn an income and contribute not only to their 
families but also to Senegalese society and economy.