This book describes the nature of trafficking in persons in West Africa, focusing on labor and sexual exploitation in the region, and recommends tailor-made solutions established by the Catholic Church in light of governmental authorities’ failure to effectively combat this scourge of humanity. While states’ efforts to fulfill their international obligations in developing anti-trafficking legislations are recognized, their failure to carry out prosecutions of offenders and ensure protection of the victims reveals that law alone is not a sufficient instrument for realizing human rights and improving people’s lives. Faced with the sobering background of less than successful efforts by governmental entities to end the trade in humans, this research study recommends adopting essential elements of Catholic social teaching, which rests on the inherent dignity of human beings allowing the development of political, socio-cultural, and religious reforms that will increase the effectiveness of existing legislation designed to combat trafficking. This faith-based approach highlights the role that religion may play in fulfilling the discretionary provisions of the Palermo Protocol by promoting the welfare and protecting the life and dignity of the victims. Additionally, religion is composed of sound moral ethics that determine people's behavior to refrain from the sinful conduct of trafficking. It also creates a sense of ethical responsibility that promotes supply chain transparency and ethical purchasing as well as advocating social reforms and anti-trafficking legislations initiatives. In fact, the author's approach, may be a model for other regions in the world and will be of interest to scholars, law and policy makers, human rights advocates and law enforcement agents working in the field of trafficking in persons.

This edited volume examines the contemporary practice of human trafficking on the African continent. It investigates the scourge of human trafficking in Africa from the broader international and regional perspectives as well as from a country-specific context. Written by a multi-disciplinary panel of academics and practitioners, the book is divided into three sections that highlight a wide range of issues. Section One examines the theoretical and legal challenges of trafficking. Section Two focuses on the regional and nation-state perspectives of human trafficking along with selected cases of trafficking. Section Three highlights the impact of trafficking on youth, with specific attention given to child soldiering and female victims of trafficking. Providing a multi-faceted approach to a problem that crosses multiple disciplines, this volume will be useful to scholars and students interested in African politics, African studies, migration, human rights, sociology, law, and economics as well as members of the diplomatic corps, governmental, intergovernmental, and non-governmental organizations.

International criminal networks mainly from Latin America and Africa -- some with links to terrorism -- are turning West Africa into a key global hub for the distribution, wholesaling, and production of illicit drugs. These groups represent an existential threat to democratic governance of already fragile states in the sub-region because they are using narco-corruption to stage coups d'état, hijack elections, and co-opt or buy political power. Besides a spike in drug-related crime, narcotics trafficking is also fraying West Africa's traditional social fabric and creating a public health crisis, with hundreds of thousands of new drug addicts. While the inflow of drug money may seem economically beneficial to West Africa in the short-term, investors will be less inclined to do business in the long-term if the sub-region is unstable. On net, drug trafficking and other illicit trade represent the most serious challenge to human security in the region since resource conflicts rocked several West African countries in the early 1990s. International aid to West Africa's "war on drugs" is only in an initial stage; progress will be have to be measured in decades or even generations, not years and also unfold in parallel with creating alternative sustainable livelihoods and addressing the longer-term challenges of human insecurity, poverty, and underdevelopment.

This volume analyses the prospects and challenges of the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples' Rights in context. The book is for all readers interested in African institutions and contemporary global challenges of peace, security, human rights, and international law. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Document from the year 2018 in the subject Politics - Region: Africa, grade: -, , language: English, abstract: West African states have become increasingly porous and vulnerable to the activities of organized criminal networks which negatively impact their security situations. At the same time, there are various national and bilateral concerns to tackle these problems and restore the security situation in these countries, yet they remain vulnerable to these quagmires, which are expressed in the forms of human trafficking/ smuggling, drug trafficking, armed robbery, money laundry and arms trafficking which have had tremendous effects on the security of these countries. However, the ease at which these crimes are executed across the sub-region signals the cooptation or involvement of some state officials, whose role is to pave way for the smooth execution of these of these nefarious acts for their private gains. In line with the foregoing, it has become necessary to interrogate the role of the criminal justice systems in the sub region. This paper examines the dynamics of corruption and institutional lapses within the context of state fragility in West Africa and determines whether or not the sub-region does lack the capacity necessary to accurately respond to the methods utilized by trafficking networks in their businesses viewing from their proliferation in the sub-region despite their threats and efforts made to counter them. The research makrd use of secondary data and the data is derived from an in-depth review of related literature on the subject mainly from online journal articles. The result of the findings shows that states’ failure to adequately position and manage their security apparatuses can give room for infiltrations that can entirely corrupt and defeat their entire security goal. Based on the findings of this work, it becomes evident that since West African states are deficient in this regard, their national security also been prone to such deficits.

There are 152 million children in the world who victims of child labor; while 73 million are involved in hazardous labor. Almost half of child labor (72.1 million) is found in Africa. 1 in 5 children in Africa (19.6%) is a child laborer, whilst prevalence in other regions such as Arab States, Asia, and Europe is between 3% and 7% (ILO, 2017). This thesis evaluates a community-based intervention implemented in Ghana, West Africa to address the problem. The project contributed to an 8% increase in school Enrollment, an equivalence of 706 in 1.5 years after implementation. The purpose of this thesis is to provide insights of this project to support the efforts of anti-trafficking institutions. In addition, to create awareness on the trauma-relatedness and a call to action for social workers to develop clinical interventions to support victims. It also discusses various limitations, implications, and future directions for the study.