VZCZCXRO3287
PP RUEHROV
DE RUEHDS #2648/01 3131342
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 091342Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6764
INFO RUCNIAD/IGAD COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEPADJ/CJTF HOA PRIORITY
RUEWMFD/HQ USAFRICOM STUTTGART GE PRIORITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEKDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ADDIS ABABA 002648 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR G/TIP: RYOUSEY, MFORSTROM; AF/E: JWIEGERT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KTIP PHUM PGOV SMIG ELAB KWMN PREL EAID DJ SU ET
SUBJECT: G/TIP VISIT REVEALS PROGRESS, CHALLENGES IN ETHIOPIA 
 
REF:  ADDIS ABABA 2314 
 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶1. (SBU)  The Government of Ethiopia (GoE) continues to take steps 
to curb the international trafficking of Ethiopian citizens, but is 
challenged by economic realities, limited law enforcement capacity, 
and ever-changing trafficking patterns.  To combat international 
trafficking, the GoE passed a new labor law and has initiated 
training targeting legal professionals.  In contrast, efforts to 
combat (or even recognize) internal trafficking remain extremely 
limited.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Meetings held during an October 12-16 visit by Rachel 
Yousey, of the Office to Combat and Monitor Trafficking in Persons 
(G/TIP), provided insight into current trafficking patterns within 
and originating from Ethiopia, as well as GoE, non-governmental 
organization (NGO), and international organization efforts to curb 
trafficking within and out of the country. 
 
UPDATE ON TRAFFICKING PATTERNS 
------------------------------ 
 
¶3. (SBU) According to Meseret Taddese, Executive Director of Forum 
on Street Children Ethiopia (FSCE), and Mulu Haile, Director of the 
Multipurpose Community Development Project (MCDP), more girls than 
boys are currently trafficked within Ethiopia.  Most girls are 
trafficked to work as domestic laborers, although girls are 
increasingly trafficked for sexual exploitation.  Boys are usually 
trafficked for a specific form of manual labor, based on the skills 
for which their tribe is known (e.g., weaving in the SNNP region, 
herding among the Oromo, guarding and shop keeping among the 
Gurage). 
 
¶4. (SBU) Meseret and Josiah Ogina, Head of the International 
Organization for Migration's Ethiopia Mission, told Yousey and 
PolOff that two new trafficking patterns have developed in the last 
one to two years:  one from Amhara region to Djibouti and the 
Ethiopia-Djibouti border, and the other from Oromia region to Sudan. 
 In Amhara region, traffickers recruit young women by promising to 
secure them high-paying jobs in Djibouti, but then transport them to 
tent cities that serve truckers along the Ethiopia-Djibouti border. 
While women are generally not forced to stay, they have no means to 
return home and are shamed by the great expense their families have 
paid on their behalf (often over 300 USD, the equivalent of a year's 
salary), and remain in the camps working as cooks, shopkeepers, or 
prostitutes. 
 
¶5. (SBU) In Oromia region, agents recruit young Muslim women by 
promising them high salaried work as domestic workers in Sudan, only 
to force them into prostitution in brothels in Khartoum or near 
Sudan's oil fields.  Ogina noted that many urban emigrants also use 
Sudan as a jumping-off point to be smuggled to Europe or North 
Africa, lending credibility to agents offering to find rural 
migrants work in Sudan.  The 3000-4000 USD fee charged to smuggle 
urban migrants is usually paid for by family members living abroad. 
 
 
¶6. (SBU) Meseret reported that increasing numbers of children are 
being trafficked to Djibouti and Sudan for sexual exploitation.  He 
also noted that boys are easily trafficked into Djibouti to serve as 
shop assistants or errand boys because they are not noticed by 
immigration officials alert only to women being trafficked into 
prostitution. 
 
TRAFFICKERS WARY OF ANTI-TIP EFFORTS 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶7. (SBU) Kassa Kere and Solomon Sima, also of FSCE, told Yousey and 
PolOff that traffickers have become more adept at eluding police and 
NGO efforts to curb trafficking.  Child traffickers have learned to 
avoid the joint FSCE-Addis Ababa Police "Child Protection Unit" at 
the city's main bus terminal, where hundreds of children have been 
rescued over the past few years.  They now disembark outside the 
city, where police and social workers are not trained to recognize 
trafficking patterns.  Likewise, brothel owners in Addis Ababa have 
learned they will be targeted by NGOs and (to a lesser extent) 
police if they "employ" children, and so no longer have young girls 
living on-site, but rather rent rooms to the girls on a short-term 
per-client basis, so they are considered less of a liability. 
 
REVISED LABOR LAW HOLDS PROMISE 
------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) The GoE has taken significant action to curb international 
 
ADDIS ABAB 00002648  002 OF 003 
 
 
trafficking in the past, and toward this goal revised the labor law 
governing overseas work in August, 2009.  Saud Mohammed, Director of 
Employment Service Promotion at the Ministry of Labor and Social 
Affairs (MoLSA), praised the revision for granting MoLSA greater 
authority to govern employment agencies that send Ethiopians abroad. 
 The new law requires Ethiopian agencies or their local affiliates 
to maintain a shelter for abused workers in each country where they 
operate, increases the cash and bond deposits that agencies must 
provide as collateral in the event that a worker's contract is 
broken, enables MoLSA to more readily seize that collateral, and 
mandates the establishment of labor attach positions at Ethiopian 
diplomatic missions abroad.  (Comment:  Limited provision of 
consular services for Ethiopian workers abroad has been a weakness 
in GoE efforts.  End comment.)  Ethiopian Private Employment 
Agencies' Association board members Tefera Tadesse and Amha Tesfaye, 
on the other hand, criticized the new law for tightening 
restrictions on employment agencies.  They told Yousey and PolOff 
that as the GoE made business more difficult for them, the number of 
Ethiopians working abroad illegally had increased. 
 
¶9. (SBU) Saud admitted that Parliament had not provided funding for 
labor attachs, and that MoLSA would not likely be able to establish 
such positions in the near future.  He also noted that while MoLSA 
collects information on employment agencies - including complaints 
from workers overseas - this information is not available to the 
public. IOM is currently helping MoLSA develop an electronic 
repository for this information, and Saud hoped this data would be 
made public in the future. 
 
TRAINING LEGAL PROFESSIONALS AND CONSULAR OFFICERS 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶10. (SBU) Another area of progress has been the GoE's willingness to 
incorporate trafficking into training for judges, prosecutors, and 
police.  In July 2009, the Supreme Court's Justice Professionals 
Training Center agreed to incorporate TIP training into its 
curriculum, working jointly with Project Concern International, a 
G/TIP-funded NGO (reftel).  During this visit, the Ministry of 
Justice's Legal Training Division professed interest in providing 
similar training. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Separately, Ambassador Halima Mohamed, Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs Director General for Women's Empowerment, acknowledged that 
despite the Ministry's instruction to its diplomatic missions to 
provide more comprehensive services to Ethiopian workers abroad, and 
TIP victims in particular, little progress had been made.  Halima 
stated that at present, consular officers do not receive any TIP or 
labor rights training before entering service, and agreed that 
providing such training was needed to improve consular services. 
Yousey noted that in other countries, U.S. Missions had been able to 
provide such training, and Halima was receptive to this idea. 
(Comment:  Post will work with G/TIP and MFA to further explore this 
possibility.  End comment.) 
 
EFFORTS TO CURB INTERNAL TIP STILL LACKING 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶12. (SBU) Numerous NGOs reported receiving cooperation from regional 
and state governments, state-owned enterprises, and local police. 
For example, the SNNP regional government provides free radio time 
to MCDP to air anti-trafficking outreach programming, the Addis 
Ababa police provide full-time police officers to staff Child 
Protection Units alongside social workers from FSCE, and the 
Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation provides free long-distance 
telephone service and the assistance of its employees across the 
country to FSCE.  However, nearly all NGO contacts stated that the 
majority of police officers (aside from those detailed to CPUs) had 
little understanding of TIP, and that their organizations received 
little support from the MoJ.  Others stated that judges and local 
administrators did not consider internal trafficking a serious 
problem. 
 
¶13. (SBU) Fekadu Tsega, Addis Ababa Administration Deputy 
Prosecutor, and Assistant Prosecutor Hailemariam Temesgen stated 
that they were not aware that a case of internal trafficking in 
persons had ever been prosecuted in Ethiopia.  In a moment of 
extraordinary candor, Hailemariam said it was unlikely any cases of 
internal trafficking would be prosecuted in the near future because 
many GoE officials believed trafficking victims needed employment to 
lift them from extreme poverty, no matter how horrific the 
conditions of that work.  He further stated that many Ethiopians 
believed trafficked children were better off in prostitution than 
they would be starving, so long as the children were above age 15. 
Fekadu noted that there were a few child exploitation cases pending, 
but they were weak, and the prosecutor's only goal was to prevent 
"huge damage."  In response to Yousey's questioning what trafficking 
 
ADDIS ABAB 00002648  003 OF 003 
 
 
cases might be sufficient to merit prosecution, Hailemariam stated 
that cases involving murder, rape, sexual abuse, and severe physical 
abuse would fall into that category. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶14. (SBU) Extreme poverty in Ethiopia and the promise of greater 
opportunity abroad or in urban areas draw many Ethiopians into 
situations of trafficking and extreme physical and emotional abuse. 
Traffickers are wise to GoE and NGO efforts to curb trafficking, and 
new trafficking patterns present challenges to even the best law 
enforcement efforts.  While the GoE has enacted policy changes and 
committed resources to prevent international trafficking, more work 
lies ahead.  Moreover, the GoE has done very little to prevent or 
address internal trafficking - and officials admitted that it will 
likely do little in the near future. 
 
¶15. (SBU) All groups with which Yousey and PolOff spoke stated that 
better GoE inter-ministerial coordination was needed to curb 
trafficking from and within Ethiopia, namely in the form of the 
Inter-ministerial Trafficking Task Force, which has not met in two 
years.  IOM and EU representatives in Addis are in the early stages 
of developing a strategy to move the GoE toward a more 
comprehensive, coordinated anti-TIP policy, and post will join those 
efforts and initiate its own where appropriate.  Post will continue 
to encourage the GoE to conduct anti-TIP outreach, including the 
training of legal and diplomatic staff, providing technical support 
where possible.  END COMMENT. 
 
¶16. (U) This message has been cleared by Rachel Yousey. 
 
MCBRIDE