Trafficking in Persons

The law prohibits trafficking in persons; however, there were reports that persons were trafficked from and within the country. The law prescribes five to 20 years imprisonment for such crimes. The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MOLSA), in collaboration with the police, is responsible for monitoring trafficking in persons, while the MOJ is responsible for enforcing laws related to trafficking. During the year, the MOLSA revised Proclamation 104/98 to improve coordination, supervision, and control over international employment agencies and better protect migrant workers from fraudulent recruitment and debt bondage situations.

The country is a source country for men, women, and children trafficked primarily for the purpose of forced labor and, to a lesser extent, for commercial sexual exploitation. High unemployment, extreme poverty, and the chance at better opportunities abroad drive migration. Local NGOs estimated 30,000 to 35,000 persons were trafficked internationally between March 2007 and March 2008. More females than males were trafficked. Young women, particularly those ages 16-30, were the most commonly trafficked group, while a small number of children were also reportedly trafficked internationally.

Rural children and adults are trafficked to urban areas for domestic servitude and, less frequently, commercial sexual exploitation and other forced labor, such as street vending, begging, traditional weaving, or agriculture; situations of debt bondage were reported. Women are trafficked transnationally for domestic servitude, primarily to Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, but also to Bahrain, Djibouti, Kuwait, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Some of these women are trafficked into the sex trade after arriving at their destinations, while others have been trafficked onward from Lebanon to Turkey, Italy, and Greece. Small numbers of men are trafficked to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States for low-skilled forced labor.

Addis Ababa’s police Child Protection Unit (CPU) reported that traffic broker networks grew increasingly sophisticated and collaborative. Traffickers now approached vulnerable individuals at bus terminals seven to nine miles outside of Addis Ababa to avoid police presence. Traffickers sometimes used agents and brokers to lure victims with jobs, food, guidance, or shelter.

Crosscountry bus and truck drivers are involved in trafficking of children, while brokers, pimps, and brothel owners finalize the deal at the receiving end.

Local brokers operate and recruit at the community level, and many knew the victim or victim’s family. To avoid police detection and identification, local brokers did not advertise, often worked from rented houses, cafes, or hotel rooms, and changed places often. Some brokers used commission-based facilitators who were trusted by a potential victim’s family to recruit victims.

The government helped address trafficking through awareness raising about risks of seeking employment overseas. It employed two predeparture counselors to brief persons intending to work overseas, worked with NGOs and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to monitor immigration and emigration patterns for evidence of trafficking, and supervised and trained international labor migration firms.

The government and its embassies and consulates provided little assistance to victims of trafficking: limited legal advice, infrequent temporary shelter, and no repatriation loans. Returning victims relied on psychological services provided by public health institutions and NGOs.

The government accords no special protections, restitution, and has very limited shelter provisions or other special services benefits for victim returnees. In 2007 there were anecdotal reports of returned trafficking victims being detained, jailed, or prosecuted for violations of laws, such as those governing prostitution or immigration.

While antitrafficking investigations continued, there were only three convictions reported in the last year. In addition, law enforcement entities lacked the institutional capacity to separate data on trafficking cases from broader fraud cases. In 2007, the CPU at the central bus terminal reported 694 cases of child trafficking to the police, a decrease over the previous year. Of these, 50 cases were referred to the prosecutor’s office; 30 were closed for lack of evidence or a suspect; and the remaining 20 cases were pending prosecution. Of the remaining 594, 103 were referred for shelter services in Addis Ababa. No follow up information was available regarding the remaining 491. Law enforcement data was not reported for areas outside of the capital.

In March the Federal High Court sentenced a man to five years’ imprisonment for trafficking more than 40 men to work for a Saudi Arabian construction company, where they were forced to provide unpaid manual labor and experienced physical abuse.

Another trafficker was sentenced in January to one year’s imprisonment and fined 26,000 birr ($2,535) for trafficking a female domestic worker to Dubai. A small number of local police and border control agents are believed to accept bribes to overlook trafficking.

Persons with Disabilities

The law does not mandate equal rights for persons with disabilities, and the government devoted few resources to rehabilitate or assist such persons. The government did not mandate access to buildings, such as schools, for persons with disabilitiesor provide services for them.

Persons with disabilities sometimes complained of job and wage discrimination.

Women with disabilitiesare more disadvantaged than men in education and employment. For instance, an Addis Ababa University study showed that female students with disabilities are subjected to a heavier burden of domestic work than their male peers. The enrollment rate for girls with disabilities is lower than males at the primary school level, and this gap increases at higher levels of education. Girls with disabilities are also much more likely to suffer physical and sexual abuse than able-bodied girls.

There were approximately seven million persons with disabilities, according to the Ethiopian Federation of Persons with Disabilities. There was one mental hospital and an estimated 10 psychiatrists in the country. There is one school for the blind in Addis Ababa. MOLSA, which was responsible for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities, funded prosthetic and orthopedic centers in five of the nine regional states over the past three years as part of its “National Program of Action for Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities.”

National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities

There are more than 80 ethnic groups, of which the Oromo, at 40 percent of the population, was the largest. Although many groups influenced political and cultural life, Amharas and Tigrayans from the northern highlands played a dominant role. The federal system drew boundaries roughly along major ethnic group lines, and regional states had much greater control over their affairs than previously. Most political parties remained primarily ethnically based.

The military remained an ethnically diverse organization; however, Tigrayans increasingly dominated the senior officer corps both through preferential promotions and heightened attrition among non-Tigrayans.

There were occasional reports that officials terminated the employment of teachers and other government workers if they were not of the dominant ethnic group in the region.

Government and ONLF forces were responsible for widespread human rights abuses in the Somali Region (see section 1.g.).

EHRCO reported that ethnic conflict made up the majority of its human rights reporting this year. Ethnic conflict in the western, southern, and eastern areas resulted in killings and injuries above levels in 2007 and resulted in the death of hundreds and displacement of tens of thousands of persons. There were also clashes among ethnic groups in the Oromiya, Benishangul-Gumuz, and SNNP regions.

For example, on February 22, an Oromo student stabbed to death Zewdu Abate, an ethnic Amhara and fellow classmate at Dilla University in the SNNPR, allegedly due to ethnic tension. The suspect was in custody.

From February 3 to 7, clashes between Konso and Derashe ethnic groups left 33 dead and 17 injured in the SNNPR.

From February 21 to 26, Koira and Guji ethnic groups fought over scarce resources along the Oromiya-SNNPR border, resulting in 10 dead and 27 injured.

From May 17 to 21, a conflict over land rights between the Oromo and Gumuz ethnic groups in the Sasiga, Diga, Bumto Gida, and Limu districts in the Oromiya Region resulted in approximately 130 deaths and an unknown number of injuries. Federal and local police restored some order and arrested approximately 120 suspects, including the Benishangul-Gumuz regional vice president. At year’s end trials were reportedly underway for some suspects.

During the year, the government, led by the EHRC, completed its first implementation report for the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The EHRC solicited input from NGOs and encouraged them to do a shadow report.

Other Societal Abuses and Discrimination

Homosexuality is illegal and punishable by imprisonment. Instances of homosexual activity involving coercion or involving a minor (age 13 to 16) are punishable by three months’ to five years’ imprisonment. Where children under 13 years of age are involved, the law provides for imprisonment of five to 25 years. While society did not widely accept homosexuality, there were no reports of violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals; however, the lack of reporting may be due to fears of retribution, discrimination, or stigmatization.

The AIDS Resource Center in Addis Ababa reported that the majority of self-identified gay and lesbian callers–75 percent of whom were male–requested assistance in changing their behavior to avoid discrimination. Many gay men reported anxiety, confusion, identity crises, depression, self-ostracizing, religious conflict, and suicide attempts.

In December nearly a dozen religious figures adopted a resolution against homosexuality, urging lawmakers to endorse a ban on homosexual activity in the constitution. The group also encouraged the government to place strict controls on the distribution of pornographic materials.

Societal stigma and discrimination against persons living with or affected by HIV/AIDS continued in the areas of education, employment, and community integration. Despite the abundance of anecdotal information, there is no data or statistical information on the scale of this problem.

Section 6 Worker Rights

a. The Right of Association

The law provides most workers with the right to form and join unions, and the government allowed this in practice. However, the law specifically excludes teachers and civil servants (including judges, prosecutors, and security service workers) from organizing unions. There was government interference in trade union activities during the year. Under a new regulation passed by the Council of Ministers on August 14, the Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority’s director general has the sole power to dismiss workers suspected of corruption. Courts have no authority to reinstate workers cleared of such charges.

A minimum of 10 workers was required to form a union. While the law provides all unions with the right to register, the government may refuse to register trade unions that do not meet its registration requirements. The government retained the authority to cancel the registration of a union after consulting the appropriate courts. There were no reports that the government used this authority during the year. The law stipulates that a trade organization may not act in an overtly political manner. Approximately 300,000 workers were union members.

Seasonal and part‑time agricultural workers did not organize into labor unions. Compensation, benefits, and working conditions of seasonal agricultural workers were far below those of unionized permanent agricultural employees.

On February 7, the Supreme Court ruled that the independent ETA be shut down and forfeit its name, property, and bank assets to the government-controlled ETA. This decision capped 15 years of lengthy legal proceedings and appeals. The independent ETA ultimately appealed this decision to the Court of Cassation, a component of the Supreme Court limited to fundamental errors in law, but again lost on June 26. The independent ETA relinquished its property on August 8.

On July 23, employees of Shell Ethiopia demonstrated at the gate of their head office, expressing disappointment with Shell’s decision to sell its interests in the country to Oil-Libya and demanding better treatment. In November 2007 Shell Ethiopia’s labor union filed a lawsuit in the Federal First Instance Court alleging that Shell Ethiopia illegally changed its retirement and severance packages to save money on unemployment payments prior to a possible closure of operations. At year’s end the case remained pending.

During the year, top management of the state-owned Bole Printing Enterprise disagreed with its trade union on worker compensation and unlawful termination. In late December a labor advisory board composed of state ministers, representatives of the employees, the Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Unions, and the management of the enterprise found that both sides were at fault and decided to reinstate the unlawful terminations of employees. The employees were expected to resume their duties.

Although the constitution and law provide workers with the right to strike to protect their interests, it contains detailed provisions that make legal strike actions difficult to carry out, such as a minimum of 30 days’ advance notice before striking. The law requires aggrieved workers to attempt reconciliation with employers before striking and includes a lengthy dispute settlement process. These applied equally to an employer’s right to lock workers out. A majority of the workers involved must support a strike for it to occur.

Workers nonetheless retained the right to strike without resorting to either of these options, provided they give at least 10 days’ notice to the other party and to the MOLSA, make efforts at reconciliation, and provide at least a 30‑day warning in cases already before a court or labor relations board.

The law also prohibits strikes by workers who provide essential services, including air transport and urban bus service workers, electric power suppliers, gas station personnel, hospital and pharmacy personnel, firefighters, telecommunications personnel, and urban sanitary workers.

The law prohibits retribution against strikers, but labor leaders stated that most workers were not convinced that the government would enforce this protection. Labor officials reported that, due to high unemployment and long delays in the hearing of labor cases, some workers were afraid to participate in strikes or other labor actions.

b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively

The law protects the right of collective bargaining for most workers, and in practice the government allowed citizens to exercise this right freely. Labor experts estimated that collective bargaining agreements covered more than 90 percent of unionized workers. Representatives negotiated wages at the plant level. Unions in the formal industrial sector made some efforts to enforce labor regulations.

Although the law prohibits antiunion discrimination by employers against union members and organizers, unions reported that employers frequently fired union activists. Lawsuits alleging unlawful dismissal often took years to resolve because of case backlogs in the labor courts. According to labor leaders, a number of court cases in which workers were terminated for union activities were pending after four or five years. Employers found guilty of antiunion discrimination were required to reinstate workers fired for union activities and generally did so in practice.

There are no export processing zones.

c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor

While the law prohibits forced or compulsory labor, including by children, such practices occurred (see sections 5 and 6.d.). Courts could order forced labor as a punitive measure. Both adults and children were forced to engage in street vending, begging, traditional weaving, or agriculture work. Situations of debt bondage also occurred in traditional weaving, pottery, cattle-herding and other agricultural activities, mostly in rural areas. Forced child labor occurred.

d. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for
Employment

There were laws against child labor; however, the government did not effectively implement these laws in practice, and child labor remained a serious problem, both in urban and rural areas. Under the law, the minimum age for wage or salary employment is 14 years; however, the minimum age for employment was not effectively enforced. Special provisions cover children between the ages of 14 and 18, including the prohibition of hazardous or night work. By law, children between the ages of 14 and 18 were not permitted to work more than seven hours per day, between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., on public holidays or rest days, or overtime; however, children ages 15 to 18 are allowed to work, so long as it is not hazardous to their health, education, development, or well-being. The government defined hazardous work as work in factories or involving machinery with moving parts or any work that could jeopardize a child’s health. Prohibited work sectors include transporting passengers, electric generation plants, underground work, street cleaning, and many other sectors.

In a 2001 survey conducted by the Central Statistics Authority, approximately 58 percent of boys and 42 percent of girls ages 5 to 14 were working. These figures were supported by a 2006 UNHCR study on the worst forms of child labor. The majority of working children were found in the agricultural sector (95 percent), followed by services, manufacturing, and other sectors. The number of working children is higher in the Amhara, Oromiya, SNNP, and Tigray regions compared with other regions. During the year the government increased investments in modernizing agricultural practices as well as in the construction of schools in efforts to combat the problem of children in agricultural sectors.

According to MOLSA, many children work for their families without pay. In both rural and urban areas, children often begin working at young ages. The MOLSA reported that two out of five working children are below the age of six. In rural areas, children work in agriculture on commercial and family farms and in domestic service. Children in rural areas, especially boys, engage in activities such as cattle-herding, petty trading, plowing, harvesting, and weeding, while other children, mostly girls, collect firewood and fetch water. In urban areas, many children, including orphans, work in domestic services, often working long hours which may prevent them from attending school regularly. Children in urban areas also work in construction, manufacturing, shining shoes, making clothes, portering, directing customers into taxis, petty trading, and herding animals. Many children believe they are unable to quit their jobs and fear physical, verbal, and sexual abuse from their employers while performing their work. According to social welfare activists and civic organizers, who cite anecdotal evidence, forced child labor is poorly documented, and child laborers often face physical, sexual, and emotional abuse at the hands of their employers.

Estimates of the population of street children vary, with government estimates between 150,000 and 200,000 and the UNICEF estimate, 600,000. In the capital city of Addis Ababa alone, there are an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 street children according to the government and 100,000 according to UNICEF. Some of these children work in the informal sector in order to survive.

The commercial sexual exploitation of children continued during the year, particularly in urban areas. Girls as young as 11 reportedly were recruited to work in brothels, often sought by customers who believed them to be free of sexually transmitted diseases. Girls were also exploited as prostitutes in hotels, bars, resort towns, and rural truck stops. Reports indicated that some young girls were forced into prostitution by their family members. The government’s definition of worst forms of child labor included prostitution and bonded labor. Within the country, children are trafficked from rural to urban areas for domestic service, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced labor in street vending and other activities. Reports indicate that children have been trafficked from the Oromiya and the SNNP regions to other regions of the country for forced or bonded labor in domestic service.

Child labor issues are currently covered by the MOLSA, with limited support from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Cooperation, information-sharing, and coordination between and among the ministries were poor. Courts are responsible for enforcing childrens’ rights, and criminal and civil penalties may be levied in child rights violation cases. In the absence of a national strategy, investigation and disposition of child rights violation cases is minimal.

To prevent child trafficking, a joint police-NGO child victim identification and referral mechanism operates in the capital. The Child Protection Units (CPUs) in each Addis Ababa police station rescued and collected information on trafficked children that facilitated their return to their families; the CPUs referred 240 trafficked children to IOM and local NGOs for care in 2006. The CPUs also collect data on rescued children to facilitate their reunification with their families.

Internationally funded centers in Addis Ababa provided shelter, medical care, counseling, and reintegration assistance to girls victimized by trafficking. Other international NGOs provided assistance to children engaged in commercial sexual exploitation, including such services as a drop-in center, shelter, educational services, skills training, guidance, assistance with income-generating and employment activities, and family reunification services.

e. Acceptable Conditions of Work

There is no national minimum wage. Some government institutions and public enterprises, however, set their own minimum wages. Public sector employees, the largest group of wage earners, earned a monthly minimum wage of approximately 320 birr ($31); employees in the banking and insurance sector had a minimum monthly wage of 336 birr ($33). According to the Office for the Study of Wages and Other Remuneration, these wages did not provide a decent standard of living for a worker and family. Consequently, most families in the wage sector required at least two wage earners to survive, which forced many children to leave school early. Only a small percentage of the population was involved in wage labor employment, which is concentrated in urban areas. Many young girls have migrated illegally to the Gulf States in search of housekeeping work in order to assist families back home. Many of these girls have been subjected to inhumane living and working conditions, and some have lost their lives. In an effort to prevent these situations, the MOLSA continued to encourage illegal employment agencies to register as legal organizations.

The Ethiopian labor law provides for a 48‑hour maximum legal workweek with a 24‑hour rest period, premium pay for overtime, and prohibition of excessive compulsory overtime. Although the government did little to enforce the law, in practice most employees in the formal sector worked a 40‑hour workweek. However, many foreign, migrant, and informal sector workers worked more than 48 hours per week.

The government, industries, and unions negotiated occupational health and safety standards; however, the MOLSA inspection department did not effectively enforce these standards, due to lack of resources. Lack of detailed, sector‑specific health and safety guidelines also pronhibited enforcement. Workers had the right to remove themselves from dangerous situations without jeopardizing their employment; however, most workers feared losing their jobs if they were to do so.