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Viewing cable 07NIAMEY26, TIP IN A TRANSIT TOWN: AGADEZ, NIGER
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| Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 07NIAMEY26 | 2007-01-10 15:28 | 2011-08-25 00:00 | UNCLASSIFIED | Embassy Niamey |
VZCZCXRO4442
RR RUEHMA RUEHPA
DE RUEHNM #0026/01 0101528
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 101528Z JAN 07
FM AMEMBASSY NIAMEY
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3174
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEHAS/AMEMBASSY ALGIERS 3332
RUEHTRO/AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 NIAMEY 000026
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
DEPT: FOR AF/W, BACHMAN; G/TIP FOR ZEITLIN; AF/RSA FOR
HARPOLE
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SMIG SOCI KCRM KWMN NG
SUBJECT: TIP IN A TRANSIT TOWN: AGADEZ, NIGER
NIAMEY 00000026 001.2 OF 005
-------
SUMMARY
-------
¶1. During recent travel to Agadez, the principal city of
northern Niger, Poloff explored the town's oldest industry -
trafficking. Whether in items as benign as cars or as
dangerous as drugs and guns, Agadez excels at both legal and
illicit cross-border trade. The movement of persons is a
perennial component of that trade. However, it is difficult
to distinguish unwitting Trafficking in Persons (TIP) victims
in hock to traffickers from economic migrants moving of their
own volition and on their own dime. Indeed, the latter may
become the former at any point in their travel.
¶2. TIP is linked to every other form of illicit activity in
the region, from prostitution and cigarette smuggling to
bandit attacks on tourists. However, it is hard to tell how
big a role it plays vis a vis other activities. After all,
trafficking of all kinds is big business in this old caravan
town, as it has been for over 400 years. The prospect of
economic gain in the world's least developed country
motivates both smugglers and the economic migrants in their
charge. By virtue of their extent and long history, these
problems are intractable but subject to interventions at the
margins. Even in the absence of sufficient resources,
Government of Niger (GON) officials and local NGOs are using
their knowledge of this age-old commerce to minimize some of
its human costs. END SUMMARY
---------------------------
MAPPING THE MIGRATION ROUTE
---------------------------
¶3. Agadez is Niger's gateway to the Sahara desert, North
Africa, and Europe. Along with Gao in Mali, Agadez shares the
distinction of trafficking capital of the Sahel. As in the
caravan days, simple geography dictates routes. The most
direct route from much of coastal West Africa to North Africa
is via Niger and Libya. For centuries, the old caravan town
served as the logical jumping off point for travelers
motivated by economic interests of every sort. In that, the
city has remained consistent.
¶4. While trade in dates, gold, and salt has given way to
more modern and illicit fare - cigarettes, arms, drugs, cars
and people - much else has remained the same. While Niger's
principal north-south axis, the "uranium highway," runs from
Niamey through Birni N'Konni, Tahoua, and Agadez toward the
mines at Arlit the migration route follows the old caravan
trail 250 miles to the east. Police and NGO contacts were
unanimous on this point - the principal trafficking/migration
route through Niger starts south of Zinder, at the Nigerian
border north of Kano. It then moves north through Zinder city
and region, and arrives in Agadez via Aderbissinat in central
Niger.
¶5. Agadez is a "resting point" for migrants and TIP victims,
who have usually traveled there from coastal West Africa. In
Agadez, many stop to seek the funds to continue their
journey. Some wait for up to three months in the hope of
obtaining an Algerian tourist visa that would allow them to
go north legally, and by bus. Contacts informed us that the
Western Union outlet in Agadez does a thriving business by
providing migrants with funds sent by their families. On the
other hand, Regional Police Commissioner Rachid Assoumane
noted that 70% of the city's prostitutes were migrants from
Niger's southern neighbors - Togo, Benin, Cameroon, Ghana,
Nigeria - suggesting the diverse means and situations of the
migrants who wash up in town. Local contacts note that many
migrants spend months in Agadez while seeking the funds to
continue north.
¶6. From Agadez, most migrants and TIP victims move toward
Libya, sometimes by way of southern Algeria. A 275 mile trek
on desert trails brings them to Bilma and Dirkou, small
Nigerien towns 230 miles south of the Libyan border. From
Bilma / Dirkou, they travel across the border by pick-up
truck or jeep. These small, fast vehicles are driven by local
operators and may hold as many as 33 people. Typically, the
drivers will leave their clients on the outskirts of Libyan
or Algerian towns at night, allowing them to enter town on
foot, and seek onward transportation there. The voyage from
Agadez to the area of Djanet, Algeria can take four or five
days, and prices vary widely depending on a migrant's
experience, bargaining ability, and willingness to wait.
Police and local officials claimed that Nigerien migrants and
NIAMEY 00000026 002.2 OF 005
TIP victims pay traffickers between 45,000 and 50,000 CFA
($90.00 and $100.00) to move them between their homes in the
Tahoua region and Libya. COMMENT: If true, this would suggest
that traffickers are operating on very small margins, as that
is about the price one would pay to go via conventional
transport. END COMMENT
¶7. Others, particularly third country nationals with few
ties and little local knowledge, are less fortunate. In some
cases, Libyan traffickers take passports and identity
documents from their customers, who must pay their debt in
order to get them back. Local contacts estimated that third
country nationals pay between $200 and $300 for their trips
north. During Poloff's trip to Agadez, a relevant article
appeared on the front page of the town's paper: "Air Info."
Featuring pictures of broken down trucks heavily laden with
persons, and a group holding a sign saying: "Ghana Community
Dirkou," the article noted that countless migrants made their
way north through the region each year, and stressed the fact
that many were defrauded by unscrupulous "one man tour
agencies." It also stressed other dangers: breakdowns,
capture by the Libyans, and death in the desert. The article
noted that many migrants make four of five attempts before
either succeeding or giving up.
--------------------------------------------- ----------
ASSESSING THE ORIGINS & TAKING A LOOK AT A MIGRANT TOWN
--------------------------------------------- ----------
¶8. Such motivation is comprehensible. While Niger itself is
the source of relatively few TIP victims or migrants, the
conditions that motivate Nigeriens to move may actually be
harsher than those facing the coastal West Africans. When
asked to comment on the origins of Nigerien migrants, Agadez
authorities listed several unsurprising sources: Tahoua
Region, especially the departments of Abalak and
Tchintabaraden; Northern Zinder Region; and, Diffa. From
their description, it seems that Niger's "migration belt"
overlaps with its "red band" of food insecurity (so called
because of its alarming depiction on the color-coded maps of
food security donors). This agro-pastoral belt, which runs
the length of the country, lies between 60 and 120 miles
north of the southern border. It is the zone hardest hit by
periodic droughts and by the seasonal food insecurity that
afflicts the country every year. On the way to Agadez, Poloff
stopped in the red band, visiting a town long known as a
source of economic migrants, and witnessed some of the push
and pull factors motivating people to go abroad.
¶9. The town of Illela, located south of the central Nigerien
city of Tahoua, is famous for "exode," or seasonal migration.
While Illelans seem to go to Cote d,Ivoire rather than North
Africa, their motivations for moving are the same as those of
their neighbors. Poverty and weak agricultural yields, poor
health care, education, and infrastructure combine to paint a
pretty bleak picture. People enjoy few local opportunities to
supplement their income. At the end of each agricultural
season, Illelans head south to work as itinerate salesmen or
seasonal laborers in Cote d,Ivoire. As much as regional
poverty might "push" Illelans to do this, the incentives that
"pull" them toward the coast were equally evident during our
visit. Illela's "Quartier Plateau" neighborhood featured new
concrete houses, conspicuous in a town of baked mud "banco"
architecture. Locals pointed them out as products of the
exode - built by people rather like themselves who had gone
south for several seasons and made it big. These status
symbols represent both the success of past migrants and the
aspirations of many to come.
--------------------------------------------- --------
SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM & SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS FOR AGADEZ
--------------------------------------------- --------
¶10. Poloff's December 12 meeting with Rachid Assoumane,
Chief of the National Police for the Agadez Region, addressed
the law-enforcement and social implications of the migrant
wave. Ambient crime levels in the city of Agadez are low by
western standards but migrants both contribute to this
problem and have to live with it. In 2006, youth crime in
this city of 100,000 people consisted of 58 thefts, four
attempted thefts, 33 batteries, 17 assaults, and 7 cases of
driving without a license. The Police Chief attributed most
of this problem to drug abuse - mostly marijuana smoking and
glue sniffing - and poverty. In spite of foreigners'
prominence in some criminal activities, like prostitution,
few Agadezians seem to blame migrants for crime, and there
appears to be little social tension between natives and those
traveling through.
NIAMEY 00000026 003.2 OF 005
¶11. The Chief noted that nine human traffickers had been
arrested this year. Most, however, have gotten off with
relatively light punishment due to Niger's lack of an
anti-TIP law. Three were released without being charged,
while six others were arrested and charged with the abduction
of minors. Of the six traffickers charged, four were released
when the Agadez Regional Court found no grounds for
prosecution. Two remain in custody awaiting trial as of this
writing. NOTE: Niger's lack of a dedicated anti-Trafficking
in Persons law has taken its toll on local efforts to punish
traffickers. Other laws, such as those on child abduction,
can be applied but often fail to yield convictions in cases
where parents have chosen to give their children to someone -
even pay them - for transport north. Post contacts in the
Ministry of Justice informed Poloff that Niger's draft
anti-TIP law has been submitted to the Council of Ministers
for approval, after which it will be submitted to the
National Assembly for adoption in the spring. END NOTE
¶12. The lack of an anti-TIP law is only one legal factor
complicating the fight against human trafficking. Victims are
hard to distinguish from other migrants, and migrants as a
group have every right to be in Niger; as long as they have
an ECOWAS National Identity card, they need neither a visa
nor a passport and have a legal right to travel within any
ECOWAS member country. Given the composition of the migrant
wave, this poses problems for few. Chief Assoumane argued
that Nigeriens, who seem to go north for a season of labor
and then return to their farms, are fewer in number than the
coastal West Africans who go north to get to Europe and stay.
Representatives of the Gendarmerie (paramilitary police
charged with rural law enforcement) and National Force for
Intervention and Security (FNIS: border security force)
agreed with Assoumane, and estimated that thousands of
persons are moving north through Niger every year. Given the
porous Nigerien border, the adroitness of the smugglers, and
the paucity of police, few will ever be interdicted.
--------------------------------------------- ---------
THE COMMITTEE ON REPATRIATION: ARTISTS OF THE POSSIBLE
--------------------------------------------- ---------
¶13. While Niger has had limited success in staunching the
migrant flow toward the north, neither Libya nor Algeria
honor the ECOWAS ID card, and both have reasonably effective
border security forces. Consequently, many migrants end up
seeing Agadez twice. Hundreds are captured and turned back
each year. Irrespective of their national origins, they wind
up in Niger. The Regional Government of Agadez attempts to
respond to the needs of repatriated persons, even though it
has few resources even for its own people. Through Agadez
Region's "Committee on Repatriation," the government does its
best to welcome and reintegrate migrants and TIP victims. In
a meeting with Poloff on December 14, the committee's members
discussed their work, migration and trafficking, and the many
challenges to which they attempt to engineer solutions.
¶14. The Secretary General of the Region of Agadez chairs the
committee. Other members include the Regional Chiefs of the
National Police and the Gendarmerie (paramilitary police
force), and the Social Development Director for the Region.
Established in 2005, the committee has received some material
support from UNICEF - 1,000 water containers, 1,000 bars of
soap, and 1,000 blankets. As of December 2006, the Committee
had dealt with approximately 450 migrants. NOTE: It is
difficult to say how many of these persons were trafficking
victims versus independent migrants. The committee devotes
more attention to aiding returnees than to investigating
their circumstances, and most information about them is
anecdotal. However, while no one was able to say whether
trafficking victims were included in the figure, it seems
highly probable that some were. END NOTE.
¶15. Aside from the materials given by UNICEF, the Committee
has few of its own. The Direction of Social Development, the
Red Cross, and the Agadez Youth Center all serve as temporary
shelter space for returnees, most of whom claim to have no
money or food. The Police work with local transporters and
truckers' unions to organize free transportation south for
the returnees. Most leave Agadez on the tops of
tractor-trailers, heading for southern Niger and the border.
No one can be sure how many jump off at the next stop, turn
north, and try their luck again.
¶16. Poloff noted many signs of charity on the part of the
committee members, who have given small sums of money and
food out of their own pockets to help many returnees. Absent
NIAMEY 00000026 004.2 OF 005
major international efforts to assist the committee, they
cannot do much more than that. While the committee members
complained that Europeans were providing assistance to the
migrant repatriation efforts of "front line states" like
Algeria and Libya while neglecting efforts in Niger and Mali,
they reserved most of their criticism for Libya. The
destination for most of the migrants passing through Niger,
Libya was widely criticized by the committee for its policy
of rounding up every migrant it could find and, irrespective
of the persons' nationality, dumping them all across the
border in Niger. Often left far from any source of
sustenance, these returnees risked death or injury until
discovered by Nigerien authorities and shipped south to
Agadez or Bilma/Dirkou.
¶17. The committee contrasted this approach with that of
Algeria, which drew considerable praise for border policing
that was both effective and humane. Algerians, Poloff was
told, keep the Nigerien consul informed and coordinate the
hand-off of migrants at the border. Participants
characterized Algeria as more "respectful of the rights and
dignity," of migrants. The importance of this was underscored
by the group's sober estimation that at least 75 persons had
died in the desert during 2006 while trying to cross
illegally.
¶18. Like the police, the Committee members found it
difficult to distinguish TIP victims from other migrants.
Children were a special case, and could be singled out when
traveling without their parents. However, the committee was
aware of what constitutes trafficking and was able to cite a
prominent incident. In one recent case, girls from Nigeria
were brought as far as Agadez by a trafficker, who then told
them to prostitute themselves in order to raise money for the
trip north. Not counting on such treatment, these migrants
turned TIP victims sought help from local police, who were
able to arrange for their return to Nigeria.
¶19. COMMENT: Poloff commended the committee on its good
work, and suggested that it could contact the Embassy of
Nigeria in Niamey for assistance, at least with Nigerian
victims. Post has discussed TIP with the Embassy of Nigeria
in the past, and found Embassy staff from the Ambassador on
down to be conversant with the problem and dedicated to
helping their citizens with repatriation when necessary. This
sort of partnership can help the committee to better address
the needs of TIP victims, as distinct from migrants. Victims,
like the Nigerian girls discovered this year, are those who
got more than they bargained for and are looking for a way
out. Efforts to help and repatriate them are likely to be
appreciated and cooperated with. The sort of help the
committee offers, however, is of little interest to most
returnees. Having come all the way from the coast, few are
returned to Agadez by choice, and most undoubtedly prefer to
have another go at the border to a truck ride south. END
COMMENT.
------------------------------------------
UNICEF & AFETEN: HELPING CHILD TIP VICTIMS
------------------------------------------
¶20. While children may be just as determined as adults to
move north and seek their fortune, they are more easily
identified and more often genuine TIP victims - actually
under the control of someone who is profiting from their
movement. Moreover, at least in the case of Nigeriens, the
GON can compel their return to their parents. With a G/TIP
ESF funded grant, UNICEF and a local NGO partner, AFETEN, are
attempting to reach out to child TIP victims in Agadez,
Bilma, and Dirkou. The project has thus far trained a team of
16 workers at the Agadez bus-station to identify possible
child victims of TIP, and to work with the NGO and the police
to rescue them. During the course of the year, this
"vigilance committee" has identified 14 children and
contributed to the identification and arrest of several
traffickers. Traffickers have responded to this strategy by
shifting their locations, and attempting to avoid the
station. However, by virtue of AFETEN's close cooperation
with transporters and their unions, the "vigilance
committee's" reach extends to most transport axes. Thanks to
its close cooperation with the police, AFETEN continues to
succeed in identifying and rehabilitating TIP victims in
Agadez, Bilma, and Dirkou.
¶21. Children are taken to AFETEN's shelter, are interviewed,
and receive food, shelter, and elementary counseling. The
children are then taken home to their villages (so far all
have come from Tahoua region) where their parents and
NIAMEY 00000026 005.2 OF 005
traditional chiefs are sensitized to the dangers of
trans-Saharan travel and TIP. Recognizing the link between
trafficking and poverty, the project also uses microcredit to
help families meet their material needs. NOTE: The focus on
training for children, communities, transport workers, and
the authorities dovetails with other NGOs' efforts in this
direction. Timidria, better known for its efforts to
eliminate traditional slavery, started a publicity campaign
in 2006 to inform migrants of the dangers facing them in the
desert. While neither AFETEN, Timidria, nor UNICEF hope to
curb the urge to migrate north, all hope to minimize the
human cost of the "exode," and foster understanding of its
risks. END NOTE
----------------------------------
COMMENT: CONFRONTING NORTH NIGER'S
TRAFFICKING RACKET; WHAT IS TIP,
WHAT IS NOT, AND WHAT CAN ONE DO
ABOUT IT?
----------------------------------
¶22. Smuggling of every kind is a big and occasionally
violent business in Agadez. When asked about new houses going
up, locals will often identify the builder as a "trafficker,"
of some kind. Indeed, smuggling and connected crime formed a
backdrop of sorts to our visit. A Nigerien customs officer
was shot and killed while attempting to intercept a drug or
cigarette trafficker's vehicle. French tourists were robbed
at gunpoint in the scenic Air Mountains. Police commented on
foreign prostitutes and the incidence of street crime. These
actions are linked by their actors. Many Nigeriens suggest
that former Tuareg rebels, using weapons, trucks and know-how
acquired during their (1991 - 1995) rebellion against the
Nigerien state are among the most effective and politically
sensitive smugglers.
¶23. While trafficking in general my be a massive affair,
exploitive Trafficking in Persons (characterized, inter alia,
by passports retained, usurious fees charged, forced labor,
or sexual exploitation) is only one segment of a vast market.
Indeed, most of what goes on in northern Niger might be more
accurately described as the transportation of willing illegal
immigrants for money. Most of the Nigerien operators who do
this are local people with pick-up trucks, who have neither
the network nor the inclination to keep someone in bondage to
them. Even at the higher end - $300 - traffickers' reported
fees do not seem so high that a family or individual client
could not pay them. Neither the authorities nor the NGOs were
able to identify many cases where persons had been exploited,
at least in Niger. Police had no evidence to suggest that
foreign prostitutes in Agadez were working for anyone other
than themselves. Many migrants may find themselves as victims
of exploitive human trafficking only once they reach their
destination. Indeed, we do not know what happens to these
persons upon their arrival in Libya, Algeria, or Europe.
Moreover, as few of the migrants are Nigerien, stories of
exploitation may reach relatives and villages in coastal
Africa before they are recounted in Niger. Being neither the
principal source nor the principal destination of migrants
and TIP victims, Agadez raises almost as many questions as it
answers. These questions, in turn, make it much harder to
arrive at any estimate of how many genuine TIP victims float
in the migrant wave.
¶24. No one will ever be able to disentangle all of these
questions from each other. Africa's poverty and Europe's
promise yield economic migration, which yields trafficking.
Aside from obvious cases (children, or TIP victims who seek
police help) the regions' governments will be unable to
identify most victims or arrest most traffickers, just as
they will be unable to stop the movement of their citizens.
For those who are discovered or who seek help, however, the
Government of Niger and its NGO partners have both the will
and some of the means necessary to assist. Continuing efforts
to sensitize all parties - government authorities, NGOs,
economic migrants, transporters, etc. - to the nature and
danger of TIP will be helpful. If nothing else, such efforts
could yield a savvier generation of economic migrants, better
able to avoid exploitation by human traffickers while
pursuing their dream of a better life. END COMMENT
MINIMIZED CONSIDERED
ALLEN