Global Issues

The Gambia

• Source, transit, and destination country for children and women subjected forced labor and sex trafficking.

• Within The Gambia, women and girls and, to a lesser extent, boys are subjected to sex trafficking

• Prostitution considered a major problem, particularly in tourist areas.

• Women, girls, and boys from West African countries − mainly Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, and Benin – recruited for exploitation in the sex trade in The Gambia, in particular to meet the demands of European tourists seeking sex with children.

• Women were forcibly trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation.

• Tourism offenses act prohibits sex tourism.

 

Advocacy:

• The Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children includes gender-based violence in its training modules.

• Department of Social Welfare continued to maintain an electronic child protection database, which includes information on trafficking cases.

 

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