Global Issues

Lesotho

• Source and transit country for women and children subjected to conditions of forced labor and sex trafficking, and for men in conditions of forced labor.

• Within Lesotho, women and children are subjected to domestic servitude and children, to a lesser extent, to commercial sexual exploitation.

• Basotho women and children exploited in South Africa in domestic servitude or forced marriages in remote villages may encounter commercial sexual exploitation.

• Long-distance truck drivers offer to transport women and girls looking for legitimate employment. En route, the drivers rape some of these women and girls, before forcing them into prostitution in South Africa.

• Police statistics indicated from April to December 2009, there were 823 reported cases of sexual offenses against women.

 

Advocacy:

• Women and Law in Southern Africa Trust, the Federation of Women Lawyers, the Lesotho Child Counseling Unit

 

Sources: U.S. Department of State 2010 Human Rights Report, U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2011