Africa wants global fight against human trafficking

LUANDA, July 15 (Reuters) Africa cannot stamp out the multi-billion dollar human trafficking trade alone and a global effort is needed, top legal experts from the world's poorest continent said.

Other countries needed to work with Africa, which was the most heavily affected by the illegal sale of people mainly women and children they said yesterday at a meeting of African prosecutors in the Angolan capital.

Many are sold into prostitution or enslaved, while children risked illegal adoption. Some trafficking victims, including youngsters, have been forced to fight in rebel armies active in some African nations.

"Human trafficking isn't a domestic problem, a regional or a continental problem anymore. It is a worldwide, an international problem," Keriako Tobiko, Kenya's director of public prosecutions told Reuters.

"Africa is a source or a transit point but destinations are mostly outside Africa. The only way to effectively combat this is with international collaboration on surveillance, sharing information and intelligence, mutual legal assistance and extradition. It's a problem that cannot be solved by one country alone," he added.

United Nations experts at the third annual conference of the African Prosecutors Association (APA) said criminals raked in between 7-10 billion dollars annually from the sale of human beings worldwide.

They said more than 60 percent of the business was made in Africa, mostly south of the Sahara.

"One country can't handle it without participation of others Europe should also get more involved," said Richard Buteera, director of public prosecutions in Uganda.

"If we are the source of human traffic, the destination should work with us to contain the problem. I think we can work together.

The objectives are the same, we just need to work on the mechanisms," he added.

Poverty and conflict, both of which are rife on the continent, were often at the root of the trade in people who sometimes passed through other African countries before reaching their final destinations.

Delegates said organised criminal syndicates often using false identification documents and taking advantage of porous borders in Africa were behind much of the activity.

"Those who are doing it, do it to enrich themselves. But for the victim it's usually a question of poverty and unemployment in their own countries," said Mokotedi Mpshe, South Africa's deputy national director of public prosecutors and president of the APA.

"They offer them jobs but when they arrive they are often put into prostitution," he added.

REUTERS SM KN2010