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| - Human trafficking in the Gambia covers ongoing activities in trafficking women and children in the Gambia as forced labor and prostitution. The Gambia is a source, transit, and destination country for this type of exploitation. Within the Gambia, women and girls and, to a lesser extent, boys are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation, as well as for domestic servitude. For generations, parents sent their sons to live with Koranic teachers or marabouts, who more often forced children to beg than ensured their progress in religious studies. However, this practice is declining as the security forces now routinely interrogate the marabout of any beggar they find in the streets. Some observers noted only a small number of trafficking victims, but others see the Gambia's porous borders as (en)
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has abstract
| - Human trafficking in the Gambia covers ongoing activities in trafficking women and children in the Gambia as forced labor and prostitution. The Gambia is a source, transit, and destination country for this type of exploitation. Within the Gambia, women and girls and, to a lesser extent, boys are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation, as well as for domestic servitude. For generations, parents sent their sons to live with Koranic teachers or marabouts, who more often forced children to beg than ensured their progress in religious studies. However, this practice is declining as the security forces now routinely interrogate the marabout of any beggar they find in the streets. Some observers noted only a small number of trafficking victims, but others see the Gambia's porous borders as an active transit zone for women, girls, and boys from West African countries – mainly Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, and Benin – who are recruited for exploitation in the sex trade, in particular to meet the demands of European tourists seeking sex with children. Most trafficking offenders in the Gambia are probably individuals who operate independently of international syndicates. The government's Department of Social Welfare and Tourism Security Unit are compiling electronic databases and conventional lists of trafficking cases, offenders, and victims, which may soon provide a clearer picture of how traffickers operate and how they differ from the migrant smugglers whose cases are now filling the country's courts. The Government of the Gambia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so, despite limited resources. At the highest level, the government acknowledges that trafficking exists in the country. The Gambian government lacks funding and resources to fight trafficking, though it continued to monitor and evaluate the trafficking problem in the country. Every law enforcement agency has anti-trafficking or child protection units. In July 2009, the government took an important step to increase efficiency in law enforcement by adopting a biometric national identity card system called GAMBIS. U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 2 Watchlist" in 2017. (en)
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