Trafficking in Persons in Africa's Supply Chains - Legal and Policy Assessment Methodology

Introduction

The American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) partnered with Verité, the African Labour Research Network (ALRN), and the Solidarity Center to conduct a two-year investigation of global supply chains and trafficking in person (TIP) risks in sub-Saharan Africa as part of the program Identifying Trafficking Risk and Best Practices for Combating Risk in sub-Saharan Africa Supply Chains: An Interdisciplinary Approach. The project examined four topics: 

1. African supply chain characteristics;  
2. trafficking in persons risks associated with global supply chains in a range of African contexts; 
3. company and industry practices that either enable or help prevent trafficking in persons in African supply chains; and 
4. legal and policy frameworks in which global supply chains operate in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as in which TIP takes place and/or is prevented and prosecuted. 

ABA ROLI is primarily responsible for the fourth topic listed above, and has created this methodology to analyze the legal and policy frameworks of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. This manual serves as a methodological assessment tool for producing a typology of legal and policy frameworks in which global supply chains operate in Africa, and in which TIP takes place and/or is prevented and prosecuted. ABA ROLI will use the methodology to conduct a comparative analysis of legal, policy, institutional, and accountability frameworks in sub-Saharan Africa and the compliance of such frameworks with international legal standards and best practices. Furthermore, ABA ROLI will identify legal and policy gaps that may facilitate TIP in sub-Saharan African supply chains, and undermine individual and corporate accountability for TIP. The typology of legal and policy frameworks will be combined with the information gathered by ABA ROLI’s partner organizations on the other three project topics to create the principal project deliverable. 

In addition to the legal and policy analysis, ABA ROLI implemented four case studies. The first addresses TIP risks in the Eritrean mining sector; the second discusses TIP risks in the Ethiopian garment industry; the third focuses on sexual violence and sex trafficking of women and children in the artisanal mining and conflict minerals zones of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); and the last focuses on large-scale forestry and logging and the TIP vulnerability of indigenous and/or displaced populations associated with this industry in the Central African Republic (CAR). ALRN conducted case studies of the fishing industry in Namibia, oil and gas exploration in Ghana, agriculture in Malawi, apparel manufacturing in Uganda, textile manufacturing in Lesotho, and mining in Zambia.