Prevention of Human Trafficking in Ethiopia: Assessing The Legal Framework

Abstract

Recent findings have indicated that both in-country trafficking (trafficking of individuals from rural areas to relatively affluent towns and cities) and external trafficking (trafficking of individuals from a given country to foreign countries) are prevalent in Ethiopia. In 2012, the government acceded to the Protocol to Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (The UN Trafficking Protocol, here after). With a view to giving effect to the requirements of this instrument, the government passed in to law Proclamation No. 909/2015 (The Prevention and Suppression of Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants Proclamation), which is the most comprehensive of all laws adopted in Ethiopia to deal with human trafficking. Taking in to account the fact that human trafficking is exacerbated by the absence of regulatory framework on the employment of Ethiopian nationals in foreign countries, the govern-ment has also brought in to practice Proclamation No. 923/2016 (Ethiopia’s Overseas Employment Proclamation). This article has examined whether the above-mentioned laws of Ethiopia comply with international standards in dealing with prevention strategies.