JOHANNESBURG – Nightmare adoptions or human trafficking? In Zambia, in southern Africa, eight Croats were arrested twice on the same charge of human trafficking. The eight are accused of trafficking in children in general, and in particular of forging the adoption documents of four children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who they wanted to take to Croatia.
Charges against the Croats were dropped earlier this month, but they were re-arrested 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”, saying in a press conference reported by Croatian news site N1 that he was concerned about this “very serious situation”, as he said adoption papers for children they are not fake. .
“Those documents were issued in Croatia according to a valid procedure,” he told reporters in Zagreb, Croatia. “Besides adult Croatian citizens, of course, we continue to take care of children as well.”
Seven of eight Croatian nationals charged with attempted child trafficking, before Magistrates Court in Ndola, Zambia on Tuesday 10 January 2023. The eight pleaded not guilty to child trafficking charges before a magistrate. (AP Photo/Salim Dawood)
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The eight Croats – four couples – all pleaded not guilty. The seemingly regular couples are also professionals with jobs including 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 with their home countries’ complex, lengthy and rigorous adoption procedures. Therefore, many couples turn 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 very proud of the work done to reduce the trafficking of children often disguised as adoption. With large numbers of children being trafficked out of the country using forged documents, any suspected forgery would raise a red flag with Zambian officials.
Human trafficking is increasing dramatically across Africa. The State Department’s Office for Monitoring and Combating Trafficking in Persons has awarded Uganda a Level 2 designation.
“The Ugandan government does not fully meet minimum standards for eliminating trafficking, but is making significant efforts to do so,” the State Department said in a 2022 statement.
Kenya also has a Level 2 designation from the State Department, which slammed the East African nation in a 2022 statement: “The government has reported no attempts to hold fraudulent recruitment agencies criminally accountable for facilitating trafficking crimes”.
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Seven of eight Croatian nationals charged with attempted child trafficking, before Magistrates Court in Ndola, Zambia on Tuesday 10 January 2023. The eight pleaded not guilty to child trafficking charges before a magistrate. (AP Photo/Salim Dawood)
Such agencies promise women good-paying jobs in other countries, particularly in the Persian Gulf, instead sending 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 and that around 17,500 Kenyans are trafficked each year for domestic work, forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Children make up half of this number, according to the NCCS.
“Only 2 per cent of trafficked Kenyan children make it home,” said the Borgen Project in a recent report. Authoritative sources say that in all of Africa, children make up about 75% of all those who are trafficked.
Pedestrians watch a train traveling from Johannesburg to Naledi in Soweto, South Africa on Wednesday, February 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
Today it is estimated that over 3 million Africans have been trafficked. The situation is worse, analysts say, in West Africa, but there are increasingly 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 report just released by the US Agency for International Development. The agency said prosecutions were “disproportionately low” compared to available data. In other words, many cases of human trafficking are missing.
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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.
