Festival and submission information
Festival date	Thursday, 15 October 2026
Doors open	13:30
Time	14:00 – 19:00 (5 hours)
Venue	Pathé Buitenhof
Address	Buitenhof 20, 2513 AG The Hague
Festival edition	Human Trafficking Edition
Format	In person
Refund policy	Up to 14 days before the event
Hosted by	Global Human Rights Defence & GHRTV

Strengthening Anti-Trafficking Advocacy: From Rights on Paper to Protection in Practice

Trafficking victims hold rights that exist on paper but remain out of reach in practice. Drawing on GHRD’s own published work and interviews with four specialist organisations and a survivor of labour trafficking, this report asks what advocacy must do differently.

Imara Otterspeer · Researcher and Human Rights Advocate, Global Human Rights Defence28 September 202633 pages

Human Trafficking
Advocacy
Victim Protection
Policy
Survivor Participation

Download the full report (PDF, 33 pages)

The central finding

Several international legal frameworks exist to prevent trafficking, prosecute traffickers and protect victims. Yet many victims remain unidentified, or unable to reach the protection systems formally built for them. The report calls this the protection gap: the distance between rights on paper and protection in practice.

The interviewees fundamentally challenge the assumption that stronger legal frameworks automatically produce better victim protection. The main barriers emerge instead during implementation — in identification, legal recognition, access to information, trust in authorities, and the availability of appropriate support.

Advocacy should not measure success by the adoption of new legal standards alone, but by whether existing rights are translated into practical protection.

What the research is based on

The report combines two sources. The first is an analysis of GHRD’s own reports, articles and press releases on human trafficking, examining which elements are consistently present or absent — survivor participation, attention to implementation, the specificity of recommendations, and follow-up on impact.

The second is a set of semi-structured interviews with practitioners and a survivor:

La Strada International
FairWork
SHOP Den Haag
Anti-Slavery International
Harold D’Souza, a survivor of labour trafficking

Four barriers that reinforce one another

Rather than isolated problems, the research found that barriers to protection are linked, each one compounding the next.

The protection gap. Formal rights only become meaningful when victims can actually access them.
The limits of self-identification. Protection systems assume victims will recognise their own exploitation and come forward. Traffickers deliberately undermine exactly that, through manipulation, dependency, intimidation and isolation.
Legal recognition versus practical protection. Access to rights is often conditional on meeting legal thresholds, obtaining evidence, or being tied to a criminal investigation.
Awareness without strategy. Advocacy loses force when survivor voices are absent, implementation receives little attention, and recommendations stay too broad to guide change.

Recommendations

The four recommendations below are drawn from both the analysis of GHRD publications and the interviews, and each responds to one of the challenges above. Every recommendation carries five practical actions setting out what should change, who is responsible for it, and the reasoning behind it — together aiming to strengthen victim identification, improve access to protection, increase survivor participation, strengthen prevention, and make advocacy more strategic and evidence-based.

Recommendation 1 — Advocate for accessible protection systems

Prioritise victims’ access to protection by addressing the practical barriers that stop them being identified or seeking help.

Promote proactive victim identification. Police, labour inspectors, healthcare providers, immigration authorities and social workers should be trained to recognise indicators of trafficking, rather than relying on victims to identify themselves.
Advocate for safe reporting mechanisms. Victims, including undocumented migrants, should be able to report exploitation without immediate risk of immigration enforcement or deportation.
Strengthen access to legal assistance. Early, accessible legal help so victims understand their rights, access compensation and obtain residence protection.
Promote coordinated referral systems. Closer cooperation between healthcare, legal aid, labour inspectorates, shelters and specialist organisations.
Promote sustainable long-term support. Continued access to housing, healthcare, legal assistance, education, employment and psychological support — recovery rarely ends when criminal proceedings do.

Recommendation 2 — Strengthen prevention through targeted awareness

Move beyond general awareness-raising towards prevention aimed at the people most at risk.

Develop evidence-based campaigns. Explain how trafficking actually works — psychological coercion, debt bondage, document confiscation, abuse of vulnerability, labour exploitation — not only extreme or stereotypical cases.
Target populations at increased risk. Migrant workers, asylum seekers, seasonal workers and children, with practical information in culturally appropriate language.
Promote public education on recognising trafficking. Equip the public to spot early warning signs and respond safely.
Challenge misconceptions. Address the belief that trafficking always involves physical violence or crossing a border, and reduce the stigma that deters victims.
Evaluate what the campaigns achieve. Assess whether they improve understanding, increase identification and encourage earlier reporting.

Recommendation 3 — Increase survivor participation in advocacy

Incorporate survivor perspectives systematically, so that policy reflects the realities of those with lived experience.

Engage survivors throughout the process. Consulted during research and policy development, with informed consent — not only asked for personal testimony.
Strengthen partnerships with survivor-led organisations.
Promote ethical storytelling. Informed consent, safeguarding, and full recognition of survivors’ ownership of their own experiences.
Support meaningful participation. Preparation, trauma-informed support and, where possible, fair compensation for their expertise and time.
Recognise survivors as experts, not only as victims of exploitation.

Recommendation 4 — Make advocacy strategic and measurable

Produce concrete, evidence-based recommendations and evaluate whether they change anything.

Develop action-oriented recommendations. Say what should change, who is responsible, and how progress is measured.
Strengthen recommendations through multidisciplinary evidence. Legal analysis combined with practitioner expertise, research, monitoring data and lived experience.
Maintain engagement beyond publication. Continue with policymakers and civil society through meetings, consultations and follow-up.
Monitor implementation and accountability. Follow up on whether commitments were kept and whether victims experience better access to protection.
Prioritise practical, achievable recommendations tailored to specific stakeholders.

Conclusion

The greatest challenge is no longer the absence of legal frameworks, but the barriers that prevent victims and survivors from accessing the protections that already exist. Strengthening anti-trafficking advocacy requires a greater focus on implementation, accessibility and practical impact.

Download the full report (PDF, 33 pages)

Published by Global Human Rights Defence · 6th GHRD International Human Rights Film Festival, Human Trafficking Edition

Hadijatou Mani Case: Intersecting Forms of Human Trafficking

The first slavery case ever decided in an applicant’s favour before an international court. Reading its facts against the Palermo Protocol shows how a single customary transaction can combine child trafficking, forced labour and sexual exploitation — and how a state becomes responsible through inaction.

Eva Talma · Asia Team Researcher, Global Human Rights Defence25 July 202610 min read

Human Trafficking
Slavery
ECOWAS Court
Niger
Palermo Protocol

Introduction

Hadijatou Mani Koraou was born to a mother held in slavery under the Bouzou custom. In 1996, at the age of twelve, she was sold by the chief of the Kenouar tribe to El Hadj Souleymane Naroua, a forty-six-year-old chief of Haoussa custom, for 240,000 CFA francs. The transaction took place under the Wahiya, a practice still current in parts of Niger by which a young girl — generally already of servile status — is acquired to serve simultaneously as a domestic servant and as a concubine. A woman acquired in this way is termed a Sadaka, and is treated by her “master” as available for sexual relations at any time. As a result, Hadijatou Mani Koraou was subjected to rape, violence, and forced labor without remuneration.

In 2005, under mounting pressure, Naroua signed a “liberation certificate” to free Ms. Mani. She subsequently left him and, in 2006, married another man. Naroua then filed a criminal complaint against her for bigamy, arguing that a customary marriage bound them. In May 2007, the Konni Tribunal de Grande Instance sentenced Ms. Mani and her brother to six months’ imprisonment for bigamy.

When Niger’s Supreme Court failed to convict her “owner” under the Nigerien Criminal Code — which had criminalized slavery in 2003 — the applicant brought her case before the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS Court).

On 27 October 2008, the ECOWAS Court, sitting in Niamey, ruled that Ms. Mani had been held in slavery within the meaning of Article 1(1) of the 1926 Slavery Convention, and that Niger had failed to uphold its legal obligation to protect her from slavery under both domestic and international law. The Court ordered Niger to pay her an all-inclusive compensation of 10 million CFA francs. The judgment was the first ever delivered by the ECOWAS Court on slavery, and one of the first international rulings anywhere to find a state responsible for failing to protect an individual from slavery carried out by a private actor. It remains a foundational precedent for anti-trafficking and anti-slavery litigation in West Africa.

Legal Frameworks

The Republic of Niger was bound by two international instruments regarding slavery:

The Slavery Convention, signed at Geneva on 25 September 1926, which Niger acceded to in 1964. Article 1(1) defines slavery as “the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.” This is the definition the ECOWAS Court applied directly to Ms. Mani’s situation.
The Palermo Protocol — the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, adopted on 15 November 2000. Niger ratified the Protocol on 30 September 2004.

The Protocol defines trafficking in persons at Article 3(a) as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. When the victim is a child, the definition, critically, does not require the same elements: under Article 3(c), the recruitment, transportation, or receipt of a child for exploitation constitutes trafficking regardless of whether any of the above means were used.

Domestically, Niger’s 2003 amendment to its Criminal Code inserted Article 270.1–270.5, criminalizing slavery and the reduction of a person to servitude. This was the provision Niger’s own courts declined to apply against Ms. Mani’s master, and whose non-enforcement became the crux of the case before the ECOWAS Court.

The judgment itself relies exclusively on the 1926 Slavery Convention. The Palermo Protocol is not cited anywhere in the Court’s reasoning, nor was it invoked in Ms. Mani’s own submissions, which were grounded in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the 1926 Convention. Indeed, the Palermo Protocol is a criminal-law instrument annexed to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, obliging states to criminalize trafficking and cooperate on enforcement. Unlike the African Charter or the ECOWAS Court’s own human rights protocol, it creates no individual complaint mechanism through which a victim can seek redress directly from a state. Its architecture is also oriented toward transnational, organized criminal networks, whereas Ms. Mani’s case arose from a wholly domestic, customary transaction.

The analysis below applies the Palermo Protocol’s definitions to the facts as established by the ECOWAS Court — an independent legal qualification, offered for the purposes of anti-trafficking analysis, and separate from the framework the Court itself relied upon in reaching its decision.

Analysis: A Textbook Case of Intersecting Forms of Human Trafficking

Although the ECOWAS Court framed its judgment principally around slavery under the 1926 Convention rather than trafficking under the Palermo Protocol, the facts of the case map with striking precision into the trafficking paradigm: an act, a means (irrelevant given the victim’s status as a minor), and a purpose — compounded by the state’s subsequent failure to remedy the harm.

The transaction: child trafficking

The sale of twelve-year-old Hadijatou for 240,000 CFA francs constitutes, under the Palermo Protocol’s framework, an act of child trafficking: the recruitment, transfer, and receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation. Because the victim was a minor, the question of “consent” is legally immaterial to the classification of the act as trafficking, because it cannot cure a transaction whose purpose is exploitation. The commercial nature of the exchange — an explicit price paid to acquire the girl — further underscores that this was not an informal customary arrangement but a transaction bearing the hallmarks of a sale of a human being.

The purpose: domestic servitude and sexual exploitation

This transaction occurred in the name of the Wahiya, a current practice in Niger consisting of acquiring a young girl, generally a slave, to work as a servant as well as a concubine. This slave woman is called Sadaka and does housework and is at the “master’s” service. He can, at any time, have sexual relations with her.

For instance, one day, as she was working in her master’s field, he came and surprised her and then abused her. This first forced sexual act was imposed in these conditions while she was less than 13 years old. The applicant was often the victim of acts of violence on the part of her master, as a result of genuine or supposed rebelliousness.

This dual function — domestic servant and sexual object — illustrates how a single trafficking scheme can combine several forms of exploitation recognized under Article 3(a) of the Palermo Protocol: forced labor, servitude, and sexual exploitation.

Judicial tolerance and re-victimization

The most striking element of the case, from a trafficking-response perspective, is what followed Ms. Mani’s attempt to exit her situation. Her master’s issuance of a “liberation certificate” in 2005 might have been expected to end his claims over her. Instead, when she exercised her newly recognized freedom to marry another man, he mobilized the domestic justice system against her, securing her prosecution and conviction for bigamy. In effect, a national court re-imposed the very ownership relationship that the 2003 law was meant to abolish, criminalizing the victim for asserting her freedom rather than punishing the man who had enslaved her.

This sequence — initial exploitation, followed by institutional failure to protect and active institutional re-victimization — is precisely the pattern of state complicity that the ECOWAS Court found to violate Niger’s obligations.

State responsibility for private acts

The ECOWAS Court did not hold Niger responsible for the acts of enslavement themselves, because those were committed by Naroua, a private individual, not a state agent. Rather, the Court held Niger responsible because its administrative and judicial authorities failed to act to prevent, investigate, and punish acts that Niger’s own 2003 legislation had made criminal, despite having the legal tools to do so. This is a due-diligence standard of state responsibility and the analytical core of the judgment’s significance: a state can incur responsibility through the omissions of its organs in the face of a known and documented practice.

Significance for Human Trafficking in West Africa

The ruling was the first slavery case ever decided in the applicant’s favour before an international court, and the first ECOWAS Court judgment to expose and condemn the persistence of slavery practices in Niger. Despite the criminalization in 2003, some 43,000 people were still living in conditions of slavery across the country in 2004.

Beyond the individual remedy, the case established that ECOWAS member states can be held internationally responsible not only for direct state action, but for failing to enforce their own domestic anti-slavery and anti-trafficking legislation. This principle is directly relevant in trafficking cases where the exploitation is carried out by private individuals but perpetuated by weak enforcement, judicial bias, or the re-victimization of survivors within domestic legal systems.

The judgment also produced a measurable, if uneven, domestic effect. According to INTERIGHTS’s own July 2009 update on the case, approximately thirty women came forward to anti-slavery organisations in Niger seeking their own liberation in the months following the ruling. Anti-Slavery International subsequently launched a judicial training programme with the Danish Institute for Human Rights to familiarise Nigerien judges with the ECOWAS Court’s human rights procedure.

Enforcement against Ms. Mani’s own former master illustrated the limits of that effect: Naroua was convicted of slavery on 31 March 2009 but received only a twelve-month prison sentence and 1 million CFA francs in damages to Ms. Mani — a sentence further reduced on appeal on 30 June 2009 to a three-year suspended term, with damages cut to 500,000 CFA francs.

Romana Cacchioli, then Africa Programme Coordinator for Anti-Slavery International, stated shortly after the judgment that it set a precedent capable of being extended to neighbouring states confronting comparable slavery practices, and called on Niger’s own customary-law courts specifically to stop treating servile status as a private or cultural matter beyond the reach of the law.

Conclusion

The ECOWAS Court found that Ms. Mani had been held in slavery for approximately nine years, in violation of the legal prohibition on this practice, and characterized this prohibition as an absolute, non-derogable obligation under both Nigerien criminal law and international law. The Court held Niger responsible not for Naroua’s acts directly, but for the tolerance, passivity, and inaction of its administrative and judicial authorities in the face of a practice its own legislation prohibited.

This characterization of the prohibition of slavery as a peremptory, non-derogable norm finds support in international jurisprudence. In the Barcelona Traction case (Belgium v. Spain, 1970), the International Court of Justice drew a distinction between two categories of international legal obligation. Most obligations, the Court observed, are owed bilaterally, from one state to another, and only the state directly affected has legal standing to complain of their breach. However, certain obligations are so fundamental that they are owed by every state to the international community as a whole. Because of the importance of the rights involved, every state has a legal interest in seeing them respected, whether or not it is itself directly affected by their breach. The Court termed these obligations erga omnes, and gave as its examples the prohibitions of aggression, genocide, slavery, and racial discrimination.

The relevance of Barcelona Traction to the Mani case supplies the doctrinal basis for treating the prohibition of slavery not as an ordinary treaty obligation owed only to the parties of the 1926 Convention, but as a rule of such fundamental character that any state — and, by extension, any international or regional court applying international law — has a legitimate interest in its enforcement.

Bibliography

Hadijatou Mani Koraou v. The Republic of Niger, ECW/CCJ/JUD/06/08, ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, 27 October 2008. View source
Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company, Limited (Belgium v. Spain), Second Phase, Judgment, I.C.J. 1970.
Slavery Convention, signed at Geneva on 25 September 1926 (entered into force 9 March 1927; acceded to by Niger in 1964).
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo Protocol), adopted 15 November 2000 (ratified by Niger on 30 September 2004).
Anti-Slavery International & Timidria, Slavery in Niger: Historical, Legal and Contemporary Perspectives (2003). View source
Anti-Slavery International, “Niger condemned for slavery”, press release, 27 October 2008. View source
INTERIGHTS, Hadijatou Mani v. Niger: Case Update, London, July 2009.

Published by Global Human Rights Defence · 6th GHRD International Human Rights Film Festival, Human Trafficking Edition

“I worked in Lebanon; it was not easy for me” — Isatu’s Story

In an exclusive interview, Isatu, a former domestic worker in Lebanon, describes five years of unpaid wages, a confiscated passport, and a month in prison before she was deported.

Rueida Muhamed · Middle East and Africa Team Researcher, Global Human Rights Defence27 July 2026Sierra Leone → Lebanon7 min read

Sierra Leone
Lebanon
Domestic Workers
Women’s rights

Isatu, welcome to the interview. This interview is to get to know you and your story. Please feel free to start whenever you want.

I served in Lebanon; it was not easy for me. I served there for almost 5 years. They called the police on me, and they locked me in prison and deported me.

How old were you when you went to Lebanon?

I left Sierra Leone at twenty-three years old, hoping to support my mother and her two children.

How many children do you have?

I have two children — one girl and one boy.

Were they both born before you moved to Lebanon?

Yes. My daughter was four, and my son was eight when I left.

Who else is in your family?

Just my mother.

And you went to Lebanon for better job opportunities?

Yes. I wanted to send money home every month to support my children.

When I told the madam that I needed to send money back to Africa for my children, she told me it was not her concern. In my final month, they did not pay me anything at all. And when they were done with me, they threw me outside.

Can you talk about your experience as a domestic worker in Lebanon?

Lebanon was not easy for me. There was just too much happening. When it was time for my salary after the first month, I expected to be paid on December 23rd. Instead, they would delay it until December 30th or even January 1st. When I told the madam that I needed to send money back to Africa for my children, she told me it was not her concern. In my final month, they did not pay me anything at all. And when they were done with me, they threw me outside.

Can you tell me a little bit about the Madam?

The madam was an older woman. She refused to give me food until late at night. When I told her I was hungry, the madam told me it was not her business.

Did you get any days off or free time?

No. I worked every day and stayed inside the house.

Can you tell me the process of you going to Lebanon?

My friend told me that there was a madam in Lebanon who needed someone to work for her. I said okay, no problem, because I wanted to take care of my children. My friend told me that when I arrive in Lebanon, I will have freedom and everything I need. But when I got there, it was not easy. I had nothing. I called my friend and told her, you said I would have everything. You said Madam would give me food. But every day, by four or five o’clock, I don’t have any food. My friend hung up the phone on me.

Was that a close friend of yours?

Yes.

Can you describe a day as a domestic worker? What did you do from morning until night?

I watched the children and took care of the madam. If the children did not sleep, I did not sleep. I cooked, cleaned and washed dishes. I would sleep in the kitchen.

How many kids did the family have?

Six — three boys and three girls.

You told me you used to sleep in the kitchen. Did you have any mattress, blanket or pillow?

No. Only a small blanket.

Did you get to use the shower or take care of yourself?

I showered only after finishing work at midnight.

Did the madam take your passport away from you?

Yes.

How long was your contract?

Two years. I completed it but never received my passport back.

Did you discuss the payment before you started working?

I was told I would receive 200 dollars, but the madam paid me 150.

Did you ask her why?

I asked her why she took 50. She told me that when the work was finished, I had to pay for the food I ate and the electricity I used. I said to her that we had agreed she would provide those things for me. She said no — the 50 was for her.

Before starting, did they tell you your working hours?

No. I asked her, madam, why do I work from 6 in the morning until midnight? She told me it was because she had children, and that was the reason I was getting paid. I told her no, I also have a life. I want to rest, and I need to rest.

I called my agent, and he told me that she had the right, so I had to get up at 6 in the morning and finish at midnight. In the end, I had no choice, so I said okay.

Who is this agent?

A Lebanese man living in Ghana.

And how did you meet the agent?

I met him at the airport when I arrived in Lebanon. He took me straight to madam’s house.

“There are too many Africans outside”

You told me the madam kicked you out of the house. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

I wanted to visit my friend. The madam told me there were too many Africans outside and threw me out.

Was there a lot of conflict between you and the Madam?

Yes. When the month ended and I asked for my salary, she told me to go outside. When I stepped out, she closed the door on me. When I asked her, madam, please let me inside, she told me, this is not your place. Go outside. I told her that I didn’t know anyone outside, but she said that was not her business. Then another girl rescued me. I lived with her until I was arrested.

Why did the police arrest you?

The police arrived and asked for my documents. The madam had kept my passport and refused to bring it even when the police called her.

What happened then?

The police took me to the airport.

How long were you in prison?

One month.

How was that experience?

They gave food only once a day.

Did you share the cell with many people?

Yes. Twenty-six women from Lebanon, the Philippines, Kenya, and other countries.

The Kafala system — “It’s not comfortable, but I did not have any choice”

What are your thoughts on the Kafala system?

It’s not comfortable, but I did not have any choice. Even after returning to Africa, the madam refused to give me my passport or luggage back. She even told me to call the police on her if I wanted my stuff.

Did you ever call the police on them?

No. Even when the police asked the madam to bring my passport, she ignored them.

How was life when you came back to Sierra Leone?

I started attending an organisation for domestic workers, where I am learning small skills, like making jewellery and accessories. They only pay for my transportation. I have no money.

How are your kids doing now?

I live with my mother. My daughter is with me at the organisation today, and my son stayed with my mother.

How do you feel now that you came back to Africa?

I feel good; I get to see my sisters (friends). I’m much happier now because in Lebanon I did not have my mommy or father. I did not have my children.

Interview conducted by Global Human Rights Defence · 6th GHRD International Human Rights Film Festival, Human Trafficking Edition

Interview with Tenneh — a Domestic Worker from Sierra Leone

Tenneh was promised hotel work in Oman on a salary of 500 dollars. She arrived to a household of eight, twenty-four hour days, and a passport she has never seen again.

Global Human Rights DefenceSierra Leone → Oman7 min read

Sierra Leone
Oman
Domestic Workers
Kafala system

Would you like to start by telling me about your story? What brought you to choose to be a domestic worker?

I am a 28-year-old young woman from Sierra Leone. I chose to work as a domestic worker because life was very difficult at home, and my family did not have money. I decided to go to the Middle East so I could help them. But when I went there, things were not easy at all.

Which country in the Middle East did you go to and how did you travel there? Which year did you move?

I moved in 2018. I went to Oman by flight.

Did you pay for the flight yourself?

No, they paid for everything.

Who paid for it, the family that hired you?

No, we paid an agency in Sierra Leone.

How did you get in contact with the agency?

I did not meet the man from the agency directly. It was one of my friends who connected me to him. I also had other friends who were doing the same kind of work. My friend told me that this man helped people travel outside Sierra Leone, so I agreed to meet him. I was interested because things were not easy where I lived; there was no job, and my family was suffering.

My friend took me to the man, and he explained that I would be working in a hotel. He told me my salary would be 500 dollars, and I was very excited because I thought that once I got there, I would be able to support my family, and they would no longer suffer. But when I arrived, things were completely different. The work was extremely heavy, and I worked 24 hours a day without rest.

Were you living inside the house of the family you worked for, and were you legally employed?

There were eight people in the house, the children, the mother, the father, the daughter in law, and the daughter in law’s two boys. I was living in the house and I was illegally employed.

Were they providing food and help if you had health problems?

No. If I was sick, they told me they would take money from my salary.

Did you become sick while in Oman? What happened?

Yes. When I told my boss I was not feeling well, he said he had to take money from my salary, so they reduced my pay or did not pay me at all. I worked there for a year and two months, and because of that excuse, he only paid me for five months and kept the rest. I stayed in Oman for two years. When I left the house where I had been working, I met a lady called Julie. She was American, and she was helping us.

What kind of work were you doing for the family in Oman?

I cleaned, cooked, and did the laundry. The man tried to abuse me sexually, but I did not give him the chance. For example, when I woke up in the morning and went to the kitchen, I would immediately return to the room as soon as he came into the kitchen. Then he would take time to leave the house.

After that, both he and his wife would shout at me. The wife screamed at me all the time.

What happened to your passport?

I did not have access to my passport while I was in the house. They took it from me, and I never saw it again. I have been trying to find it, but I could never recover from it. The lady was very aggressive and treated me badly. I do not have a passport.

Who was this American woman? Was she working for an international organisation?

I think so, yes. She was just helping us. We wanted to go back to our country because things were very bad. By then, the Coronavirus had started as well, so we were not working and we were suffering.

How did you meet her?

When I ran away from the house, I met a Sierra Leonean friend who asked me if I wanted to go back to Sierra Leone. I said yes. Then she asked me if I wanted to join prostitution, but I said no.

One day we met a man from Uganda. I think his mother had also been a domestic worker. He was only helping Ugandan people. He gave us the number of the lady, and she told us that she would find us an apartment. She was the one giving us food and everything else for eight months.

There were people from Sierra Leone, India, Bangladesh and Nigeria. The apartment was in the city of Al Mabilah. In total there were 18 people there, and 15 were from Sierra Leone.

How did you manage to return to Sierra Leone?

Only two people in the apartment had passports, so the lady had to arrange boarding passes for the rest of us. That was not easy because the Ambassador of Sierra Leone was not in Oman; he was in Saudi Arabia, so there was no embassy in Oman.

The lady spoke to him, but he told us we had to identify ourselves as Sierra Leoneans. We did everything we could, but we could not communicate properly to prove it. Later, the ambassador was able to speak to us directly, and he recognised us as fellow Sierra Leoneans. He said he would try to help us get passports, because we had no documents to prove who we were.

The police never came to the apartment because the girl had told them that there were people there who wanted to go back to their country. When the Ambassador finished arranging the boarding passes, he sent them to the girl. After that, the police took us to the airport, and we returned home.

How was the apartment organised?

We could not go out because it was during Corona. We cooked for ourselves. We also could not leave because there was a camera in the apartment. They told her to put the camera there so they could make sure nobody went out. The police told her that if they caught any of us outside the house, she would be taken to jail.

We did not have proper access to healthcare for COVID. She provided us with everything, including food. There were 18 people living in that apartment. She arrived in Oman in December 2018 and left in May 2020. Once she got the boarding pass from the Ambassador, the police brought us to the airport. I think the police knew that the ambassador was speaking to us.

What did you do after returning to Sierra Leone?

Of course, life is still not easy, so I started using my main skill. I took classes in Sierra Leone and began working from home. I am not fully qualified because I did not do a master’s class, I did not have money for that, and I still do not have money now to start one.

Do you make enough money to live and help your family as well?

I am still struggling and I cannot save money. I have one child who is four years old and she is going to school. I pay for her education. I put her in a private school because education is very important, especially because she must learn English and many other things. You know, government schools are not very good in terms of education. I want her to have a good education.

I was in public school, but I dropped out at 12 to help my family.

What did you do after dropping out of school?

I worked as a domestic worker in Sierra Leone, on my family’s farm.

How many people are in your family?

We are 10, and I lost my father last year.

Which year did you move to Oman?

I moved in December 2018 and came back to Sierra Leone May 2020.

Interview conducted by Global Human Rights Defence · 6th GHRD International Human Rights Film Festival, Human Trafficking Edition

From the bin she slept in to the desk she works at — Adamsay’s Story

Adamsay was beaten with a bamboo cane, drank bathroom water to survive, and escaped by hiding in a garbage bin. She is now an advocacy officer for an organisation that trains returning migrant workers.

Global Human Rights DefenceSierra Leone → Oman6 min read

Sierra Leone
Oman
Kafala system
Survivor advocacy

Can you maybe start by telling me about the work of the organisation and your position as the advocacy officer?

Our organisation helps women to learn skills so they don’t get enslaved again, making sure they can depend on themselves and support their families. We teach skills like tailoring, computer and IT, catering, hairdressing, and soap making. We also advocate for the rights and dignity of migrant workers, especially women and girls, raising awareness of the Kafala system so future girls do not get traumatised like us.

What led you to decide to work abroad?

I lost my father in 2019 and had to drop out of school because we could not fund it anymore. This is when I learned about a program helping people find jobs in Oman that pays a good salary, so I can help my family financially. I went to the agent who shows pictures of other ladies that are doing well. My mother then sold our property and gave the agency the money, we had to use all the money to pay for visas, travel, and other necessities. The agency promised me I would be paid 400 dollars monthly when I arrived in Oman.

What was your experience once you arrived in Oman?

Once I got to the airport, they took all my documentation and introduced me to the family and home I had to take care of. They made me work every day with no rest or breaks, I even had to work when I was sick. They would use a bamboo cane to beat me if I was resting. I did not have a phone because they said I was here to work, not to communicate with my family. They only paid me for 2 months, but I was there for 8. When I asked to get paid fully, they said they are not spending money on me because it was COVID. I was not allowed to sit on their chairs, they wouldn’t give me medicine when sick, and would not allow me to eat or drink water. I had to drink bathroom water to survive. I also had to sleep on carpets and did not have a closed door, basically having no privacy. One day, I managed to get in room where my passport and other documentation was. That evening, I slept in the garbage bin so I could escape. When I found people to help me, I was taken to the hospital and counselling because I was very sick and traumatised.

What happened when you returned home?

When I returned home to Sierra Leone, my family rejected me because I didn’t have the money to give them while they sold their land for me. They didn’t believe me when I said the program was slavery. I said it was very difficult experience but they still kicked me out when I couldn’t give them the money they asked for. I said it was a slavery, but they still rejected me. When I went to my friends for support, they made me feel ashamed and a community disgrace and would laugh at me. I was so ashamed and traumatised and didn’t know where to go. Another friend told me about an office, and the head of the officer was Lucy.

Lucy was the only one that supported and helped me. Every time I went there, she would help me, they would cook for us so I could eat, and I could sleep there. The office helped migrant workers who had no lawyers or family. We bought computers to learn IT skills, that’s where I started taking computer class and now I am the advocacy officer as a job that allowed me to return to my family with the money I earned. I reunited with my family again. Most of the victims when they come home they are traumatised, so I decided to go to the university to do a nursing course on my own. It is difficult because I am paying for it myself and am trying very hard. I want to help other victims.

Can you shortly explain what the Kafala system is?

It is a system in a lot of Asian countries where they have control over employees and workers. It gives them the power to do whatever, usually as a chain work with agents and different connections. It doesn’t give rights to workers and we are left with no control over ourselves or our belongings.

It is also more dangerous for women and girls. They would put us in a single room because we can’t pass in the airport. They put maybe 20 girls in a single room when we are travelling. We are also supposed to take care of our family, so I don’t think it’s a good thing for us to go in an Arab country and be treated like this.

They are not slaves. We have rights — the right to rest days, medication, to be treated humanely, to be paid for our labour, the right to seek justice, control over our own documents, and to receive payment on time.

What message would you want the government, international community, and civil organisations to hear in order to prevent future exploitations and better protect migrant workers?

We choose to migrate because the situation is bad in our home country, maybe you finish school or university but do not have any job. So that’s why most people migrate to another country looking for a job. So I am appealing to the government, to anybody that wants to help, please, let migrant workers have their own rights in any country. They need to stop treating migrant workers like slaves and let their rights and voices be heard. We have rights, the right to rest days, medication, to be treated humanely, to be paid for our labour, the right to seek justice, control over our own documents, and to receive payment on time. We went there to help with their families, we are there to find something for our family, to support our families, we are begging for our rights. They should stop belittling migrant workers, they are not slaves, please treat us like family.

Maybe if we are not okay with the house or the job we are working, let us choose to go to another home. Because some agents they cannot allow that. Every time you want to change they say no and start beating you for that.

Interview conducted by Global Human Rights Defence · 6th GHRD International Human Rights Film Festival, Human Trafficking Edition

Interview with Fatima, a Domestic Worker from Sierra Leone

Fatima signed a contract written entirely in Arabic, a language she does not read. Three years, four households and a war later, she came home through the International Organization for Migration.

Global Human Rights DefenceSierra Leone → Lebanon9 min read

Sierra Leone
Lebanon
Domestic Workers
Recruitment agencies

Full record of the interview. Fatima left Sierra Leone for Lebanon on 2 January 2022 and came home through the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on 19 November 2024. This transcript was written up from notes taken during the conversation, as a recording was not possible. Nothing she said has been changed, and she has consented to her story being shared under her first name only.

Thank you for trusting us with your story, Fatima. Can you start by telling us who you are and why you decided to work abroad?

I am a young woman of twenty-eight from Sierra Leone. Before I left for Lebanon, I was studying Business Administration at home. When I heard about the chance to work abroad and earn money, I took it. I thought it would be better to pause my studies and earn something, so that I could support my mother and go back to my studies later on. I never imagined that what was waiting for me would be so traumatic.

Take us back to how it all began. What were you told the job would be?

The agency that recruited us painted a certain picture. They told us we would be doing administrative work, that we would work for one family, and that we would be paid 200 dollars a month. That was what I agreed to. Even before I left, I had to take out a loan to pay for my visa, which was my work permit, and to book my flight to Lebanon. I paid that money to the agency in Sierra Leone, out of my own pocket. The contract I signed with the agency in Lebanon was written entirely in Arabic. None of us spoke Arabic, so we had no idea what we were signing. They simply pointed to where we should put our names. It was completely closed to us, and they even took the contract away with them, leaving us with nothing. We knew only what they told us we were agreeing to. But it was work, and I needed the money for my mother, so I signed. They told me the contract ran for two years.

So you signed something you could not even read. What happened once you arrived in Lebanon?

The moment I landed, everything changed. They took me to a hotel along with other workers from Sierra Leone, and they took our passports away from us. Then I was sent to the first house. I had been expecting to work for two people. Instead, I was working day and night, with no days off at all. It was not only the owners of the house I had to look after. There were their children and their grandchildren, the neighbours, family members who came to visit, and the parents of the owners, whose homes I also had to go to. Very often the owners had several houses of their own, which was never something I had agreed to. By the end, I was working for twenty people rather than two. They would even wake me in the middle of the night to work. On top of all that, they cut me off from my family. They turned off my internet. And they paid me 150 dollars instead of the 200 we had agreed on. Their excuse was that the family gave me my food and water.

Twenty people, when you had only ever agreed to two. Did you at any point try to leave?

After six months, I wanted to go home. The work in that first house was heavy on me, in my body and in my mind, and it was nothing like what I had agreed to. But when I went to the office, they told me my contract was two years long, and that if I stopped now, I would have to begin the two years all over again with a new family. I still wanted to go home. The agency refused and told me I had to stay until the contract was fulfilled. And, of course, they were holding my passport. I was not ready for that, and I had not expected it. There was simply no way to leave without my passport, so I went on to the second family.

You mention going on to a second family. Was that one any different?

The trouble was just the same as in the first house. When I eventually moved families again, starting the two years over one more time, the third family at least paid me the 200 dollars. But this time they gave me no food and no water. I had to sort all of that out for myself.

It sounds as though each move brought the same troubles with it. Were you treated differently in other ways too?

Yes. Whenever I went out to buy things, and especially when I bought a SIM card so that I could have internet, I was made to pay 15 dollars instead of 10. And it carried on like that with everything I bought, all because of the colour of my skin. I was treated differently for how I looked, and I was made to feel worthless, while I was working day and night as a domestic worker for five or six dollars a day. They would often say that African women are very strong and that we can work hard. But they used that against me, to keep me working at weekends, on holidays, in whatever free time I had, even while I was sleeping.

Being kept working even while you slept must have taken a real toll. When you needed a doctor or medicine, were you able to get it?

Whenever I asked to see a doctor, the agency and the families would become angry. Even after asking many times, and even when they did eventually take us, the simple act of asking again and again for basic care wore me down, in body and in mind. My colleagues went through exactly the same thing. When I went out and paid for my own medicine at the pharmacy, out of my own salary, the family would still be angry. They were angry even at being asked for medicine.

I had come to Lebanon with 20 kilos, and I went back to Sierra Leone with 15. I fought to stay alive.

You were already carrying so much. What were your final months in Lebanon like?

The last house I worked in, in 2024, was in the south of Lebanon. By then, we were already ten months into the war, with heavy bombing between Israel and Lebanon. Finding food was hard, and staying safe was harder still. I was terrified. All I wanted was to be home. My thoughts were with my family the whole time. I kept asking myself why I had ever come to Lebanon. I had come to earn money, and now here I was, frightened for my life. I would far rather have been at home than die in a country where my family would never even see my body. The agency did not care about any of my fears and would not listen to me. They gave me no voice at all. So, I made up my mind to leave that fourth house, down in the south, in the middle of the night.

Leaving in the dark like that took real courage. Where did you go after that?

I went to the consulate. I rang Caritas and I reached out to NGOs in the area, but they told me that because I had a work contract, there was nothing they could do for me. So, I ended up in a camp in Beirut, together with other colleagues. They had lived through much the same things I had, and we talked about how hard it all was, and how badly we wanted to go home and be free of the nightmare. I had seen blood everywhere. I could not believe what I was seeing. I was in shock, and I was frightened. The fear of not making it back in one piece, of dying in Lebanon rather than reaching home, weighed heavily on me. In the end, IOM came and worked to get people out of the area, and I was one of them. I was so grateful. I had come to Lebanon with 20 kilos, and I went back to Sierra Leone with 15. I fought to stay alive.

And thankfully you made it. You got home. What has life been like since you came back?

Even now, I am still carrying the trauma of it, and at the same time I am more than grateful to IOM and grateful to be home safe. It has been almost two years, and I am still struggling to find my feet. There is a belief across Africa that when someone goes abroad, they come back rich. For me, it turned out very differently. I came home traumatised, with my studies unfinished and no way to find steady work. For now, I get by through trading, selling water, juice, clothes and shoes, so that I can support myself, my family and my mother. What I really hope for is the chance to go into skill training and get certified, so that one day I can also employ other women like me, but the machines for tailoring and fashion design are very costly here, and support is hard to find. What happened to me is not an easy thing to forget.

Thank you for your bravery in sharing all of this, Fatima. If there is one thing you want people to carry away from your story, above everything else, what would it be, especially the young women thinking of doing what you once did?

It is not a bad thing to leave home to earn money. I was only in my mid-twenties myself. But you must be informed about the work you are taking on, and about the papers you are signing. You need to know that there are proper safety measures in place, that your rights will be respected, and that you will be treated as a human being, whatever your background or the colour of your skin. Ask how people are treated in that country. Ask whether your employer has anything in place to keep you safe. Ask what your contract actually says. Do not take up an opportunity before you have done your research and truly thought it through. Be resilient and be strong, but do your due diligence as well.

Interview conducted by Global Human Rights Defence · 6th GHRD International Human Rights Film Festival, Human Trafficking Edition

6th GHRD International Human Rights Film Festival

Films that expose. Stories that endure.

Thursday 15 October 14:00 – 19:00

Opening and keynote speaker

First round of film screenings

Panel discussion

Break

Second round of film screenings

Panel discussion

Concluding remarks

Networking cocktails

Documentaries, research and testimony

The New Slavery

Familial Trafficking: Exploitation behind Closed Doors

Thailand’s Seafood Slaves

The Patterns GHRD production

Sex Trafficking in America

City of Ghosts

This Adventure Called California

All People Free

My Filipino

Opening

Screenings

Panels

The work carries on after the screening

Strengthening Anti-Trafficking Advocacy: From Rights on Paper to Protection in Practice

The central finding

What the research is based on

Four barriers that reinforce one another

Recommendations

Recommendation 1 — Advocate for accessible protection systems

Recommendation 2 — Strengthen prevention through targeted awareness

Recommendation 3 — Increase survivor participation in advocacy

Recommendation 4 — Make advocacy strategic and measurable

Conclusion

Hadijatou Mani Case: Intersecting Forms of Human Trafficking

Introduction

Legal Frameworks

Analysis: A Textbook Case of Intersecting Forms of Human Trafficking

The transaction: child trafficking

The purpose: domestic servitude and sexual exploitation

Judicial tolerance and re-victimization

State responsibility for private acts

Significance for Human Trafficking in West Africa

Conclusion

Bibliography

“I worked in Lebanon; it was not easy for me” — Isatu’s Story

“There are too many Africans outside”

The Kafala system — “It’s not comfortable, but I did not have any choice”

Interview with Tenneh — a Domestic Worker from Sierra Leone

From the bin she slept in to the desk she works at — Adamsay’s Story

Interview with Fatima, a Domestic Worker from Sierra Leone

6^th GHRD International Human Rights Film Festival