Human Trafficking in Lesotho: Root Causes and Recommendations

This policy paper is based on a United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) research study on “Human Trafficking, Especially of Women and Children in Southern Africa (Lesotho, Mozambique, and South Africa)”. It is intended to serve as a tool for advocacy and to increase understanding about how to address human trafficking in Lesotho, and it includes recommendations to be implemented by a wide range of actors. The report suggests that awareness-raising and information, strong judicial systems and law enforcement, as well as victim protection and reintegration, are crucial, complementary elements in the struggle, but remain insufficient without a strong human rights foundation.


The report explains that Lesotho is a country of origin and transit for human trafficking activities, and it experiences internal and international human trafficking flows. Victims become vulnerable due to various push and pull factors. Pull factors might include a demand for domestic and sexual services, and economic differentials that make even relatively economically poor neighbouring cities, regions, or countries seem a likely source of livelihood. Push factors mainly include poverty, gender discrimination, lack of information and education, HIV and AIDS, violence against women, harmful socio-cultural practices, and lack of legislative and policy frameworks.


The report states that the laws that are currently in place in Lesotho are inadequate, and that there is a need for policies or projects that are directly geared towards eliminating the push and pull factors of human trafficking to accompany adequate legislation. The report also explains that there is a lack of information and knowledge about trafficking because of the silence surrounding the problem. Public knowledge and awareness of the problem would contribute significantly towards its eradication. If policy makers, law enforcers, and communities are aware of the existence and associated problems of human trafficking, it will be easier to identify, prosecute, and punish all actors in human trafficking. Legislative, political, and economic measures must be undertaken at national, regional, and international levels to eradicate human trafficking.


The report makes the following recommendations related to research, awareness raising, and training:

• There is an urgent need for advocacy, more information, and sensitisation related to human trafficking, first at the level of the population, so that leaders are pressured to make changes. If one raises awareness in the local population, they will more likely know what risks they face when accepting offers of migration. Different channels, like a radio soap opera, advertisements in newspapers, and schools, can be used in order to reach people. In order to achieve this goal, there is thus a need to create awareness-raising material, which should be translated into Sesotho to make it widely accessible to communities.
• There is a need to organise a training of trainers and other stakeholder (chiefs, local government officials, the judiciary, the media, ministries, and para legal staff) workshops to better address human trafficking in Lesotho.
• The Child and Gender Protection unit should undertake a study and assessment of the extent and magnitude, including the provision of statistical data, of the problem of trafficking of women and children for exploitation. This will assist in determining strategies for dealing with trafficking. The government should also provide a specific budget for the unit in order to enable it to function effectively.
• Interventions should be set up with regards to HIV and AIDS. Health issues and, in particular, the effects of HIV and AIDS have been recognised as having serious effects on economies, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa where the infection rates are high. In seeking to address the economic and social issues associated with HIV and AIDS, it becomes necessary within a gender-mainstreaming context to consider not only the policy implications for women and children but also for men and boys. It would be important to assess their objective social, economic, and political conditions, and assess how these conditions contribute to men’s sexual behaviour, and how this correlates with increases in infection rates.
• Further research should be undertaken on trafficking for adoption and body parts, the role of the internet in the dynamics of human trafficking, the role of organised crime syndicates, and the geographic dynamics of human trafficking in Lesotho.

The report concludes that whatever strategies are developed to combat trafficking, women’s rights need to be at the core of every strategy in all sectors and all areas of activity. Unless women are equally situated and valued in terms of their social roles, they will remain vulnerable to trafficking and abuse.