Nairobi, July 28 (IANS) The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) warned on Tuesday that hundreds of thousands of people across Africa have been trafficked by criminal networks and forced into online fraud operations that generate billions of dollars in illicit profits annually.
IOM said human trafficking networks are increasingly targeting job seekers across East, Horn and Southern Africa, forcing victims into illegal activities amid reports that nationals from Kenya, Ethiopia and neighbouring countries have been trafficked into scam compounds operating in Asia, Xinhua News Agency reported.
“The identification of East Africans among victims rescued from scam compounds demonstrates that trafficking for forced criminality is no longer a distant threat. Criminal networks are actively targeting job seekers across our region with false promises of employment abroad,” Frantz Celestin, IOM regional director for East, Horn and Southern Africa, said in a statement issued in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.
Ahead of the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons to be observed on July 30 under the theme “Trapped Behind the Scam,” IOM said the growing threat highlights how organised criminal networks are exploiting the aspirations of people seeking employment opportunities abroad.
Last week, Ethiopian police announced the arrest of 17 suspected members of an organised human trafficking network accused of illegally trafficking tens of thousands of Ethiopians and causing the deaths of more than 60 people.
The suspects, allegedly led by a trafficking kingpin named Mohamed Tahir Aden, operated a large-scale network that illegally smuggled more than 40,000 Ethiopian nationals to Saudi Arabia through Djibouti and Yemen, the Ethiopian Federal Police said in a statement.
In addition to committing serious crimes, including sexual violence against several women, police also accused the trafficking group of collecting more than 1 billion birr (about 6.19 million U.S. dollars) from victims.
Police said the group used brokers to identify and recruit victims from different parts of the East African country and facilitated their illegal smuggling abroad by falsely promising the victims they would easily enter Saudi Arabia via Yemen and live a better life.
–IANS
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