III. METHODS

This report is based on a field mission to Togo by Human Rights Watch researchers in April and May 2002. Human Rights Watch interviewed trafficked children in the capital city, Lomé, as well as in twelve cities, villages and/or prefectures within 500 kilometers of the capital: Vogan, Afanyagan, Tohoun, Sotouboua, Tchamba, Sokodé, Bafilo, La Binah, Bassar, Tsévie, Hahatoe, and Est-Mono/Élavag non. In Lomé we conducted interviews at an emergency shelter where several trafficked children were staying, and in the offices of a women's rights NGO. We spoke with a total of ninety children, of whom seventy-two would qualify as having been trafficked under the legal definition in the U.N. Trafficking Protocol. We also talked to prefects, village and canton chiefs, social workers, police officers, gendarmes, teachers, parents, children, and other citizens concerned and/or affected by child trafficking.⁶

Interviewees were identified either through local authorities who were familiar with specific cases of child trafficking, or through NGOs in Lomé and Tsévie that were providing services to abused and neglected children. All of the children interviewed had been released by their traffickers or had fled; this may have excluded certain types of cases, such as those where escape was impossible. Most children had already returned to their families by the time of the interview, although many were still awaiting reintegration by NGOs or local authorities. Some of the girls interviewed had recently escaped domestic labor and were engaged in sex work in Lomé.

In general, interviews were open-ended and covered a range of topics related to the causes, elements and consequences of child trafficking. Either one or two Human Rights Watch researchers conducted each interview, usually with the assistance of an interpreter. Most interviews took place in Ewé, Kabyé or Mina, local languages, with interpretation into either French or English. Children were interviewed individually and assured of complete anonymity. Child sex workers were, at their request, interviewed in the presence of a peer counselor or outreach worker.

In addition to interviews with children and local community members, Human Rights Watch spoke with thirty-two governmental and nongovernmental experts in Togo, including officials from Togo's Ministry of Social Affairs and National AIDS Program, judges, foreign embassy representatives, directors and staff members of child rights and AIDS service organizations, and U.N. officials. We also reviewed numerous documents before and after the mission, including published and unpublished studies, journalistic accounts and legal instruments.

For the purposes of analysis, Human Rights Watch used the definition of child trafficking found in the U.N. Trafficking Protocol: the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of any person under the age of eighteen for the purposes of sexual or labor exploitation, forced labor, or slavery.⁷ We interpreted the key elements of this definition to be the involvement of a trafficker, the movement of a child to a new location, and the intent to exploit the child at some point in the process.⁸ Although the concept of "exploitation" is not defined under international law, we considered as exploitation any non-consensual use of the child's labor for financial or other benefit, including forced labor, slavery, practices similar to slavery, servitude, and the worst forms of child labor as defined by the ILO.⁹ A number of Human Rights Watch's witnesses would not qualify as having been trafficked under the above definition, but their stories provided insight into the context within which child trafficking occurs.

6 For administrative purposes, Togo is divided into thirty-two prefectures, each with a prefect appointed by the president on the recommendation of the minister of the interior. Prefectures are further subdivided by canton, village, neighborhood, tribe, clan and family.

7 United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish the Trafficking of Persons, especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (2000), art. 3 (not yet in force). The Protocol defines a child as any person under eighteen years of age (art. 3(d)) and defines "exploitation" as including "at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs" (art. 3(a)). The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines children as "Every human being under the age of eighteen years unless, under law applicable to the child, majority is obtained earlier." Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 1, G.A. Res. 44/25, annex, 44 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 167, U.N. Doc. A/44/49 (1989). Human Rights Watch considers anyone under the age of eighteen to be a child.

8 A narrower definition of child trafficking, agreed upon at the 2002 First Specialized Meeting on Child Trafficking and Exploitation in West and Central Africa, is "a phenomenon where an individual (called an intermediary), for a fee and through violence or ruse, displaces within or outside a national territory an individual less than eighteen years old for sexual or commercial exploitation, generally with the complicity of the parents." First Specialized Meeting on the trafficking and exploitation of children in west and central Africa, "Rapport de Synthèse" (Yamoussoukro: January 8-10, 2002), p. 6.

9 See Trafficking Protocol, article 3. The term "forced labor" is defined in article 2.1 of ILO Convention No. 29 Concerning Forced Labour as "all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily." The term "slavery" is defined in article 1.1 of the U.N. Slavery Convention as "the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised." Practices similar to slavery are defined in article 1 of the U.N. Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery to include, among other things, debt bondage and serfdom. Servitude is not defined in international law, but it is understood that the above practices are forms of servitude.