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TO AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE IMMEDIATE 0000

UNCLAS STATE 060542 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KTIP ELAB KCRM KPAO KWMN PGOV PHUM PREL SMIG CM
SUBJECT: CAMEROON -- 2009 TIP REPORT: PRESS GUIDANCE AND 
        DEMARCHE 
 
REF: A. (A) STATE 59732 
     ¶B. (B) STATE 005577 
 
¶1. This is an action cable; see paras 5 through 7 and 10. 
 
¶2. On June 16, 2009, at 10:00 a.m. EDT, the Secretary will 
release the 2009 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report at a 
press conference in the Department's press briefing room. 
This release will receive substantial coverage in domestic 
and foreign news outlets.  Until the time of the Secretary's 
June 16 press conference, any public release of the Report or 
country narratives contained therein is prohibited. 
 
¶3. The Department is hereby providing Post with advance press 
guidance to be used on June 16 or thereafter.  Also provided 
is demarche language to be used in informing the Government 
of Cameroon of its tier ranking and the TIP Report's imminent 
release.  The text of the TIP Report country narrative is 
provided, both for use in informing the Government of 
Cameroon, and in any local media release by Post's public 
affairs section on June 16 or thereafter.  Drawing on 
information provided below in paras 8 and 9, Post may provide 
the host government with the text of the TIP Report narrative 
no earlier than 1200 noon local time Monday June 15 for WHA, 
AF, EUR, and NEA countries and OOB local time Tuesday June 16 
for SCA and EAP posts.  Please note, however, that any public 
release of the Report's information should not/not precede 
the Secretary's release at 10:00 am EDT on June 16. 
 
¶4. The entire TIP Report will be available on-line at 
www.state.gov/g/tip shortly after the Secretary's June 16 
release.  Hard copies of the Report will be pouched to posts 
in all countries appearing on the Report.  The Secretary's 
statement at the June 16 press event, and the statement of 
and fielding of media questions by G/TIP,s Director and 
Senior Advisor to the Secretary, Ambassador-at-Large Luis 
CdeBaca, will be available on the Department's website 
shortly after the June 16 event.  Ambassador de Baca will 
also hold a general briefing for officials of foreign 
embassies in Washington DC on June 17 at 3:30 pm EDT. 
 
¶5. Action Request: No earlier than 12 noon local time on 
Monday June 15 for WHA, AF, EUR, and NEA posts and OOB local 
time on Tuesday June 16 for SCA and EAP posts, please inform 
the appropriate official in the Government of Cameroon of the 
June 16 release of the 2009 TIP Report, drawing on the points 
in para 9 (at Post's discretion) and including the text of 
the country narrative provided in para 8.  For countries 
where the State Department has lowered the tier ranking, it 
is particularly important to advise governments prior to the 
Report being released in Washington on June 16. 
 
¶6. Action Request continued:  Please note that, for those 
countries which will not receive an "action plan" with 
specific recommendations for improvement, posts should draw 
host governments' attention to the areas for improvement 
identified in the 2009 Report, especially highlighted in the 
"Recommendations" section of the second paragraph of the 
narrative text.  This engagement is important to establishing 
the framework in which the government's performance will be 
judged for the 2010 Report.  If posts have questions about 
which governments will receive an action plan, or how they 
may follow up on the recommendations in the 2009 Report, 
please contact G/TIP and the appropriate regional bureau. 
 
¶7. Action Request continued: On June 16, please be prepared 
to answer media inquiries on the Report's release using the 
press guidance provided in para 11.  If Post wishes, a local 
press statement may be released on or after 10:30 am EDT June 
16, drawing on the press guidance and the text of the TIP 
Report's country narrative provided in para 8. 
 
¶8. Begin Final Text of Cameroon,s country narrative in the 
2009 TIP Report: 
 
----------------------------- 
 
Cameroon (TIER 2 Watch List) 
 
------------------------------ 
 
Cameroon is a source, transit, and destination country for 
women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced 
labor and commercial sexual exploitation.  Most victims are 
children trafficked within the country, with girls primarily 
trafficked for domestic servitude and sexual exploitation. 
Both boys and girls are also trafficked within Cameroon for 
forced labor in sweatshops, bars, restaurants, on tea and 
cocoa plantations, in mines, and for street vending and 
possibly for forced begging.  Authorities report that within 
the country some parents loan their child for monetary 
 
compensation for forced labor in domestic service, street 
vending, or prostitution.  Children are trafficked to 
Cameroon from Nigeria, Chad, the Central African Republic, 
Congo, Benin, and Niger for forced labor in agriculture, 
fishing, street vending, and spare-parts shops.  Children 
from Mali are trafficked to Cameroon by religious instructors 
for forced begging.  Cameroon is a transit country for 
children trafficked between Gabon and Nigeria, and from 
Nigeria to Saudi Arabia.  It is a source country for women 
transported by sex trafficking rings to Europe, primarily 
France, Germany, and Switzerland.  Reports indicate that 
traditional religious leaders may subject individuals to 
hereditary slavery practices rooted in ancestral master-slave 
relationships in some northern chiefdoms. 
 
The Government of Cameroon does not fully comply with the 
minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; 
however, it is making significant efforts to do so.  Despite 
these overall efforts, the government did not show evidence 
of progress in prosecuting and punishing trafficking 
offenders or protecting victims; therefore, Cameroon is 
placed on Tier 2 Watch List.  While Cameroon pursued some 
trafficking investigations, the government reported no 
prosecutions or convictions and victim protection efforts 
remained weak. 
 
Recommendations for Cameroon:  Increase efforts to prosecute 
and convict trafficking offenders; educate police, judges, 
lawyers, and social workers about the law against child 
trafficking; finalize and enact the draft law criminalizing 
the trafficking of adults; investigate reports of hereditary 
slavery in the Northern Province; and develop and implement 
formal procedures through which law enforcement and victim 
protection officials may systematically identify trafficking 
victims among vulnerable populations and refer them for care. 
 
 
Prosecution 
----------- 
The Government of Cameroon demonstrated minimal efforts to 
combat trafficking through law enforcement means during the 
last year.  Cameroon does not prohibit all forms of 
trafficking, though it criminalizes child trafficking and 
slavery through its 2005 Law Combating Child Trafficking and 
Slavery, which prescribes a penalty of 20 years' imprisonment 
-- a punishment that is sufficiently stringent.  Article 2(3) 
of Cameroon,s Labor Code prohibits forced labor, prescribing 
an inadequate penalty of $100 to $3,000 in fines.  The 
government,s 2006 draft law prohibiting trafficking has yet 
to be finalized and approved.  Penal Code Article 346 
criminalizes procuring, aiding, facilitating, or profiting 
from the prostitution of a child less than 16 years of age. 
This article prescribes a punishment of one to ten years, 
imprisonment and a fine, which is sufficiently stringent and 
commensurate with penalties for rape.  The government did not 
report any prosecutions or convictions of trafficking 
offenders during the year, though it reported that it 
investigated three trafficking cases, one of which was 
conducted jointly with Beninese authorities, and arrested one 
suspect in September 2008.  Three suspects arrested in 
January 2008 for allegedly trafficking seven children have 
not yet been prosecuted.  A suspect arrested in December 2007 
for trafficking a child who died in his custody remains out 
on bail.  A Yaounde court in 2008 held hearings on six 
additional trafficking cases derived from arrests made in 
2007; the cases remain pending in the court system.  The 
government did not investigate traditional leaders in the 
Northern Provinces suspected of keeping hereditary servants 
in conditions of involuntary servitude.  The Ministry of 
Justice in November 2008 opened a pilot data center as part 
of its effort to develop a computerized system for the 
collection of trafficking crime data.  The database is 
expected to be operational by 2012.  In October 2008, the 
National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms jointly 
funded with the UN an anti-trafficking seminar for law 
enforcement officers and magistrates on strategies for 
investigating and prosecuting trafficking offenses. 
 
Protection 
------------ 
The Government of Cameroon demonstrated weak efforts to 
protect trafficking victims over the last year.  The 
government did not operate trafficking victim shelters, but 
rather referred victims to NGOs providing shelter and other 
victim services.  The government reported that its nine 
centers for vulnerable children and additional centers for 
street children were accessible to trafficking victims. 
Authorities did not follow systematic procedures for 
identifying trafficking victims among vulnerable populations, 
such as street children, women in prostitution, and illegal 
immigrants.  As a result, some victims may have been 
inappropriately incarcerated or fined for unlawful acts 
committed as a direct result of being trafficked.  Officials 
identified 18 suspected trafficking victims during the year 
and provided care to 15 of them at a government center for 
abandoned and orphaned children until Beninese officials 
repatriated them to Benin.  The government referred one 
trafficking victim to his country,s consulate in Cameroon 
and another to an NGO for care.  In September 2008, 
Cameroonian officials cooperated with Nigerian counterparts 
to repatriate a 12-year-old Nigerian girl who had been 
trafficked to Cameroon for forced domestic labor. The 
government encouraged victims to assist in trafficking 
investigations and prosecutions, though as noted earlier, 
there were no reported prosecutions during the year.  The 
government provided foreign victims with temporary residency 
status until they were repatriated.  It did not, however, 
provide legal alternatives to the removal of foreign victims 
to countries where they face hardship or retribution. 
 
Prevention 
----------- 
The Government of Cameroon continued its efforts to prevent 
trafficking during the year.  To commemorate the Day of the 
African Child in June 2008, Cameroon organized a children,s 
National Assembly session at which child Parliamentarians 
passed a resolution calling for the creation of structures to 
care for trafficking victims.  Government radio and 
television broadcast anti-trafficking messages.   The 
Cameroonian government briefed troops on anti-trafficking 
issues and related norms of behavior before they were 
deployed on international peacekeeping missions.  In 
collaboration with the ICRC, the government also organized 
seminars for military and police leadership to keep them 
updated on these international anti-trafficking norms. 
Cameroon has not finalized or adopted its draft national plan 
of action against trafficking.  An existing inter-ministerial 
anti-trafficking committee did not meet during the past year. 
 The government made no discernable efforts to reduce demand 
for forced labor or demand for commercial sex acts during the 
year. 
 
 
¶9. Post may wish to deliver the following points, which offer 
technical and legal background on the TIP Report process, to 
the host government as a non-paper with the above TIP Report 
country narrative: 
 
(begin non-paper) 
 
-- The U.S. Congress, through its passage of the 2000 
Trafficking Victims Protection Act, as amended (TVPA), 
requires the Secretary of State to submit an annual Report to 
Congress.  The goal of this Report is to stimulate action and 
create partnerships around the world in the fight against 
modern-day slavery.  The USG approach to combating human 
trafficking follows the TVPA and the standards set forth in 
the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in 
Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the 
United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized 
Crime (commonly known as the "Palermo Protocol").  The TVPA 
and the Palermo Protocol recognize that this is a crime in 
which the victims, labor or services (including in the "sex 
industry") are obtained or maintained through force, fraud, 
or coercion, whether overt or through psychological 
manipulation.  While much attention has focused on 
international flows, both the TVPA and the Palermo Protocol 
focus on the exploitation of the victim, and do not require a 
showing that the victim was moved. 
 
-- Recent amendments to the TVPA removed the requirement that 
only countries with a "significant number" of trafficking 
victims be included in the Report. Beginning with the 2009 
TIP Report, countries determined to be a country of origin, 
transit, or destination for victims of severe forms of 
trafficking are included in the Report and assigned to one of 
three tiers.  Countries assessed as meeting the "minimum 
standards for the elimination of severe forms of trafficking" 
set forth in the TVPA are classified as Tier 1.  Countries 
assessed as not fully complying with the minimum standards, 
but making significant efforts to meet those minimum 
standards are classified as Tier 2.  Countries assessed as 
neither complying with the minimum standards nor making 
significant efforts to do so are classified as Tier 3. 
 
-- The TVPA also requires the Secretary of State to provide a 
"Special Watch List" to Congress later in the year. 
Anti-trafficking efforts of the countries on this list are to 
be evaluated again in an Interim Assessment that the 
Secretary of State must provide to Congress by February 1 of 
each year.  Countries are included on the "Special Watch 
List" if they move up in "tier" rankings in the annual TIP 
Report -- from 3 to 2 or from 2 to 1 ) or if they have been 
placed on the Tier 2 Watch List. 
 
-- Tier 2 Watch List consists of Tier 2 countries determined: 
(1) not to have made "increasing efforts" to combat human 
trafficking over the past year; (2) to be making significant 
efforts based on commitments of anti-trafficking reforms over 
the next year, or (3) to have a very significant number of 
trafficking victims or a significantly increasing victim 
population.  As indicated in reftel B, the TVPRA of 2008 
contains a provision requiring that a country that has been 
included on Tier 2 Watch List for two consecutive years after 
the date of enactment of the TVPRA of 2008 be ranked as Tier 
¶3.  Thus, any automatic downgrade to Tier 3 pursuant to this 
provision would take place, at the earliest, in the 2011 TIP 
Report (i.e., a country would have to be ranked Tier 2 Watch 
List in the 2009 and 2010 Reports before being subject to 
Tier 3 in the 2011 Report).  The new law allows for a waiver 
of this provision for up to two additional years upon a 
determination by the President that the country has developed 
and devoted sufficient resources to a written plan to make 
significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with the 
minimum standards. 
 
-- Countries classified as Tier 3 may be subject to statutory 
restrictions for the subsequent fiscal year on 
non-humanitarian and non-trade-related foreign assistance 
and, in some circumstances, withholding of funding for 
participation by government officials or employees in 
educational and cultural exchange programs.   In addition, 
the President could instruct the U.S. executive directors to 
international financial institutions to oppose loans or other 
utilization of funds (other than for humanitarian, 
trade-related or certain types of development assistance) 
with respect to countries on Tier 3.  Countries classified as 
Tier 3 that take strong action within 90 days of the Report's 
release to show significant efforts against trafficking in 
persons, and thereby warrant a reassessment of their Tier 
classification, would avoid such sanctions.  Guidelines for 
such actions are in the DOS-crafted action plans to be shared 
by Posts with host governments. 
 
-- The 2009 TIP Report, issuing as it does in the midst of 
the global financial crisis, highlights high levels of 
trafficking for forced labor in many parts of the world and 
systemic contributing factors to this phenomenon:  fraudulent 
recruitment practices and excessive recruiting fees in 
workers, home countries; the lack of adequate labor 
protections in both sending and receiving countries; and the 
flawed design of some destination countries, "sponsorship 
systems" that do not give foreign workers adequate legal 
recourse when faced with conditions of forced labor.  As the 
May 2009 ILO Global Report on Forced Labor concluded, forced 
labor victims suffer approximately $20 billion in losses, and 
traffickers, profits are estimated at $31 billion.  The 
current global financial crisis threatens to increase the 
number of victims of forced labor and increase the associated 
"cost of coercion." 
 
-- The text of the TVPA and amendments can be found on 
website www.state.gov/g/tip. 
 
-- On June 16, 2009, the Secretary of State will release the 
ninth annual TIP Report in a public event at the State 
Department.  We are providing you an advance copy of your 
country's narrative in that report.  Please keep this 
information embargoed until 10:00 am Washington DC time June 
¶16.  The State Department will also hold a general briefing 
for officials of foreign embassies in Washington DC on June 
17 at 3:30 pm EDT. 
 
(end non-paper) 
 
¶10. Posts should make sure that the relevant country 
narrative is readily available on or though the Mission's web 
page in English and appropriate local language(s) as soon as 
possible after the TIP Report is released.  Funding for 
translation costs will be handled as it was for the Human 
Rights Report.  Posts needing financial assistance for 
translation costs should contact their regional bureau,s EX 
office. 
 
¶11. The following is press guidance provided for Post to use 
with local media. 
 
 
Q1:  Why was Cameroon placed on the Tier 2 Watch List? 
 
A:  The Government of Cameroon does not fully comply with the 
minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; 
however, it is making significant efforts to do so.  Despite 
these overall efforts, the government did not show evidence 
of progress in prosecuting and punishing trafficking 
offenders or protecting victims; therefore, Cameroon is 
placed on Tier 2 Watch List.  While Cameroon pursued some 
trafficking investigations, the government reported no 
prosecutions or convictions and victim protection efforts 
remained weak. 
 
Q2:  What progress has Cameroon made in the last year? 
 
A:  During the year, Cameroonian officials identified 18 
suspected trafficking victims and provided care to 15 of them 
at a government center for abandoned and orphaned children 
until Beninese officials repatriated them to Benin.  The 
government referred one trafficking victim to his country,s 
consulate in Cameroon and another to an NGO for care. 
Cameroonian officials also cooperated with Nigerian 
counterparts to repatriate a 12-year-old Nigerian girl who 
had been trafficked to Cameroon for forced domestic labor. 
To commemorate the Day of the African Child in June 2008, 
Cameroon organized a children,s National Assembly session at 
which child Parliamentarians passed a resolution calling for 
the creation of structures to care for trafficking victims. 
Government radio and television also broadcast 
anti-trafficking messages during the year. 
 
Q3:  What can Cameroon do to further its fight against 
trafficking in persons? 
A:  Increase efforts to prosecute and convict trafficking 
offenders; educate police, judges, lawyers, and social 
workers about the law against child trafficking; finalize and 
enact the draft law criminalizing the trafficking of adults; 
investigate reports of hereditary slavery in the Northern 
Province; and develop and implement formal procedures through 
which law enforcement and victim protection officials may 
systematically identify trafficking victims among vulnerable 
populations and refer them for care. 
CLINTON