JOHANNESBURG – An adoption nightmare or human trafficking? In Zambia, in southern Africa, eight Croats have been arrested twice on the same human trafficking charge. The eight are accused of child trafficking in general, and in particular of having falsified the adoption documents of four children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo that they wanted to take to Croatia.
The charges against the Croats were dropped earlier this month, but they were arrested again on the same charge at the airport as they tried to leave the country 48 hours later.
Croatian Justice Minister Ivan Malenica condemned the new arrest as “strange”, telling a press conference reported by the Croatian news site N1 that he is concerned about this “very serious situation”, as he claims that the The children’s adoption documents are not forged. .
“Those documents were issued in Croatia according to a valid procedure,” he told reporters in Zagreb, Croatia. “In addition to adult Croatian citizens, of course, we also continue to take care of children.”
Seven of eight Croatian nationals charged with attempting to traffic children, outside the magistrates court in Ndola, Zambia, Tuesday, January 10, 2023. All eight pleaded not guilty to the child trafficking charge before a magistrate. (AP Photo/Salim Dawood)
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The eight Croats, four couples, have pleaded not guilty. The seemingly regular couples are also professionals with jobs that include an administrator, an electrical technician, a doctor, a program director, and a professional musician who is a guitarist in a popular music band.
Analysts say families in both the US and Europe are frustrated by complex, lengthy and strict adoption procedures in their home countries. Therefore, many couples come to Africa, believing that it is easier to adopt here. However, sometimes they are perhaps guilty of trying to speed things up a bit. Zambia is definitely proud of the work it has done to reduce child trafficking, which is often disguised as adoption. With large numbers of children being trafficked out of the country using forged documents, any suspicion of forgery would raise a red flag with Zambian officials.
Human trafficking is increasing dramatically in Africa. The State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons has assigned Uganda a Tier 2 designation.
“The Government of Uganda does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but is making significant efforts to do so,” the State Department stated in a 2022 statement.
Kenya also has a Tier 2 designation from the State Department, which in a 2022 statement slammed the East African nation: “The government reported no effort to hold fraudulent recruitment agencies criminally accountable for facilitating trafficking crimes.” .
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Seven of eight Croatian nationals charged with attempting to traffic children, outside the magistrates court in Ndola, Zambia, Tuesday, January 10, 2023. All eight pleaded not guilty to the child trafficking charge before a magistrate. (AP Photo/Salim Dawood)
Such agencies promise women well-paying jobs in other countries, especially in the Arabian Gulf, and instead send them to situations in those countries where they are sexually exploited, often forced into prostitution.
Kenya’s National Council for Children’s Services (NCCS) reported last year that trafficking is on the rise, with around 17,500 Kenyans being trafficked annually for domestic work, forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Children make up half of this number, according to the NCCS.
“Only 2% of trafficked Kenyan children make it back home,” the Borgen Project reported in a recent report. Respected sources state that in Africa, children account for around 75% of all those who are trafficked.
Pedestrians watch a train traveling from Johannesburg to Naledi in Soweto, South Africa, Wednesday, February 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
Today, it is estimated that more than 3 million Africans have been trafficked. The situation is worse, analysts say, in West Africa, but there are growing real concerns about traffic in the so-called first-world cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town.
“Between December 2007 and January 2022, approximately 11,077 cases of human trafficking were reported to the South African Police Service,” according to a newly released report by the United States Agency for International Development. The agency said prosecutions were “disproportionately low” compared to available data. In other words, many cases of human trafficking are being overlooked.
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Meanwhile, in Uganda, two Americans, Nicholas Spencer and his wife Mackenzie Spencer, are in the country’s maximum security prison awaiting trial for human trafficking and torturing a 10-year-old boy.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
