US embassy cable - 05MAPUTO1030

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MAPUTO 001030 
 
SIPDIS 
AF/S - TREGER 
G/TIP - YOUSEY 
AF/RSA - ZUELHKE 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OTRA, KCRM, PHUM, SMIG, MZ, KWNM, Trafficking in Persons 
SUBJECT: MOZAMBIQUE: AUGUST 9-12 VISIT BY G/TIP AFRICA 
REPORTS OFFICER YOUSEY 
 
REF: STATE 114942 
 
1.(U) Summary: G/TIP Africa Reports Officer Rachel Yousey 
visited Mozambique August 9-12 to learn first-hand about 
efforts by the Mozambican government and civil society to 
combat the trafficking-in-persons (TIP) problem here and 
carefully explain the Department's worldwide tier-ranking 
system. During her stay she traveled to Nelspruit, South 
Africa - near the South African frontier with Mozambique - to 
meet with officials and NGO personnel working with Mozambican 
victims trafficked into the region. Yousey's visit proved 
very useful in underscoring USG concerns over TIP with the 
Mozambican government and further raising awareness locally 
about this relatively unknown issue. End summary. 
 
2. (U) Yousey engaged Mozambican official and civil society 
members active in countering the country's TIP business in 
many separate meetings, at a dinner in her honor at the DCM's 
residence and at a roundtable discussion. These discussions 
shed light on several fundamental challenges facing the 
anti-TIP community. First, all agreed that information on 
the size of the TIP problem was sketchy and anecdotal, at 
best, and that further research must be done. A survey 
underway by students at the national university, with UNICEF 
funding, should provide important information in this regard 
when completed later this fall. Second, Mozambique's laws 
were inadequate. Along with new chapters concerning 
trafficking in planned legislation on children, additional 
legislation would be necessary to protect women. A Ministry 
of Foreign Affairs lawyer at the roundtable reported that the 
GRM was taking steps to deposit at the UN its instruments of 
ratification for several UN conventions against trafficking, 
a step that would oblige the GRM to bring its laws in harmony 
with these conventions. A Ministry of Justice official, also 
at the roundtable, confirmed that his ministry would be 
moving forward in drafting such legislation. 
 
3. (U) To raise greater awareness, Post arranged a lunch 
gathering for Yousey with a dozen local journalists. During 
the hour the journalists watched, evidently most for the 
first time, a segment of a short South African investigative 
report made in 2003 entitled "Sold Sister," about the 
attempted trafficking of several young Mozambican women to 
South Africa for sex work. They questioned Yousey closely on 
details of the Department's tier-ranking system and 
Mozambique's performance. This session proved to be very 
productive: most of the journalists present, over the next 
week, filed stories on the interview for their newspapers. 
Their accounts outlined the problem in Mozambique and 
emphasized the positive role played by the USG in helping 
Mozambique confront the TIP problem. 
 
4. (U) Embassy Pol/Econ chief escorted Yousey to several 
meetings across the Mozambican/South African border in the 
South African towns of Malelane and Nelspuit. In Malelane 
she visited the Amazing Grace Childrens' Center, where she 
met Grace Mashaba, the director. Mashaba told her that she 
had been roused at 5:30 that morning by police in Malelane to 
go to the hospital and visit a ten-year old Mozambican girl 
who had been brought in, having been found that morning after 
having been raped and dumped at an informal border crossing 
nearby. Mashaba reported other anecdotal evidence of 
trafficking into South Africa. She indicated to Yousey that 
she works closely with local law enforcement authorities and 
health officials. In Nelspruit Yousey met with Captain 
Shabangu, head of the Child Protection Unit in the Nelspruit 
Police center. Shabangu told her that he thought every farm 
in the area from Nelspruit to the border had at least one 
Mozambican child working on it. Asked by Emboff how many 
farms there were in the area, he said 11,000. He said that 
his officers currently did not have the right to investigate 
possible trafficking cases on farms. Instead, they were only 
involved when an actual case of abuse was brought to their 
attention. 
 
5. (U) Yousey also met briefly with the acting chief of the 
border police on the Mozambican side at Ressano Garcia, 
Commander Jeque. Jeque said that he interviewed many 
individuals he believed were trafficking victims. However 
because he lacked any means to offer them tangible assistance 
in terms of shelter or food, after a brief meeting they left 
his office and went off to fend for themselves. Many, if not 
most, he said, returned to South Africa from the border, 
having no other prospects. He told Yousey that he had formed 
a "commission" several years earlier, a body that included 
local NGOs on both sides of the border active in countering 
trafficking, which met monthly. As head of the commission, 
he had drawn up a report, which he gave to Yousey, that 
showed that 27,057 Mozambicans had been repatriated from 
South Africa at the border in the first six months of 2005. 
Of this group, 24,960 were men, 1,799 were women and 298 were 
children under the age of 16. (Comment: Most of those 
repatriated presumably were not repeat not trafficking 
victims, but simply Mozambicans without proper documents. 
End Comment.) 
 
6. (U) Yousey also visited the central police station in 
downtown Maputo to see a women and children's shelter there. 
This was nothing more than the office of a female police 
official, who told Yousey that vulnerable women and children 
would from time to time stay overnight in the room, sleeping 
on the bench or the floor, and that she and others would pay 
for their food. (Comment: We guess that police "shelters" 
are equally rudimentary at other police stations. End 
comment.) 
 
7. (U) Comment: Embassy believes Yousey's visit succeeded in 
highlighting the problem of trafficking for the Mozambican 
government (and, through the media, for the population at 
large), and greatly benefited Post's efforts to support the 
GRM and civil society in confronting the TIP problem. Human 
trafficking is one of many challenges facing Mozambican 
society -- poverty, drought, corruption, primitive health 
care, poor education systems and HIV/AIDS being some of the 
others. We expect and will push for continued progress in 
combating trafficking, but caution that progress will be a 
long road. 
La Lime