Douala: Journalists fine-tune skills on human trafficking reporting.

It was organised in partnership with the Douala Chapter of the Cameroon Association of English-Speaking Journalists, CAMASEJ-D, and the Regional Linguistic Centre. 

Speaking to participating journalists, the Executive Director of CHRAPA, Chongsi Ayeah Joseph, said strengthening the capacity of the media to be able to report on trafficking in persons will be vital in curbing the occurrences in urban areas.

The media, he said, will not just be able to prevent trafficking in persons through communication, but also seeing into it that ratified laws and human rights conventions that exist in the country are implemented. 

Trafficking in persons and human trafficking are umbrella terms often used interchangeably, to refer to a crime whereby traffickers exploit and profit at the expense of adults or children by compelling them to perform labour or engage in commercial sex. 

When a person younger than 18 is used to perform a commercial sex act, it is a crime, regardless of whether there is any force, fraud or coercion involved.

According to experts from CHRAPA, the current crisis in the North West and South West Regions has resulted in the displacement of around 200,000 people to the Littoral and West Regions. 

With the Littoral and West Regions sharing common borders with the North West and South West Regions, he said 60% of displaced people in the Littoral and West Regions live with host families and over 50% of the displaced people are school-aged children. 

In the August 2020 Multi-Sectoral Needs Assessment in the West and Littoral Regions by the organising Committee for Humanitarian Action, OCHA, it was reported that a majority of the Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, are women and children. 

The displaced persons have acute needs for protection, food, shelter/NFI, water and sanitation, as well as access to health and education. 

In the Littoral Region, about 95 percent of IDP households have at least one orphan, unaccompanied or separated child.

In the West Region, more than 90 percent of IDP children, be they unaccompanied or not, are said to involve in some form of child labour. 

OCHA Humanitarian Dash Board, from January-September 2023, further reported that there are over 1.1 million IDPs in Cameroon, with over 548,000 returnees who are still vulnerable. 

Furthermore, in a rapid needs’ assessment carried out by CHRAPA in the Wouri Division, of Littoral Region, it was realised that cases of child sex trafficking were high and 80% of these girls were from the North West Region. 

It was also realised that the response strategy for most service providers did not specifically address trafficking in persons or modern-day slavery. 

As a result, some victims of trafficking are able to receive protection assistance like food, non-food items but while still trapped in their trafficking situation.

This is made worse by lack in civil documentation to access basic services or to travel or even negotiate for better pay. 

Limited response from gov’t, CSOs

Despite the situation, the response to trafficking, both on the part of government and Civil Society Organisations, CSOs, has remained limited. This has been as a result of lack of capacities to properly identify victims and secondly as a result of limited resources as well as government’s lack of commitment to take action to combat trafficking in persons.

Upon this backdrop, Chongsi Ayeah Joseph, emphasised that combating trafficking in persons can't be one person's business. 

"There is need for multisectoral intervention,” he said.

For two hours, Chongsi drilled journalists on how to investigate cases of human trafficking, existing laws on trafficking in persons, what the law says as punishment for perpetrators and how the media, with knowledge of the law, can pull government action against perpetrators. 

At the end of the workshop, journalists expressed willingness to report more on cases of human trafficking.