Global Issues

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Mozambique

• Source, transit, and, to a lesser extent, destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking.

• Women and girls lured to cities in Mozambique or South Africa exploited the sex trade.

• Mozambican adults are subjected to forced labor and forced prostitution in Portugal.

• Women and girls from Zimbabwe and Malawi who voluntarily migrate to Mozambique are subsequently subjected to sex trafficking or domestic servitude.

• In 2010, police discovered a network trafficking 30 to 40 African, Asian, and Eastern European women and girls each month through Mozambique to South Africa; Chinese women trafficked as part of this ring arrived in Mozambique on container ships and were later sold for $1,000.

• Mozambican or South African trafficking networks are typically informal; larger Chinese and Nigerian trafficking syndicates are reportedly also active in Mozambique.

• Domestic violence against women, particularly spousal rape and beatings, widespread.

• Many women believed it was acceptable for their husbands to beat them.

• 36% of women in Mozambique report intimate partner physical violence in their lifetime.

• 12% of women report sexual intimate partner violence in their lifetime.

• 35.3% of women report intimate partner and/or non-partner physical violence in their lifetime.

• 24% of women report intimate partner and/or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.

 

Advocacy:

• Women and Children’s Victim Assistance Units assist and counsel trafficking victims.

• Inacio Sebastiao Mussanhane, a Mozambican lawyer, was studying in South Africa when he heard that Mozambican girls were being kept as sex slaves at an upscale brothel in Pretoria. He continues to risk his life to protect the Mozambican girls, ensure the prosecution of the perpetrators, bring international attention to the issue, and disrupt a profitable multinational criminal organization.

 

Sources: UN Women Violence against Women Prevalence Data:  Surveys  by  Country 2011; U.S. Department of State 2010 Human Rights Report, U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2011; U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2009.