Zambia is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. Child victims, primarily trafficked within the country for labor and sexual exploitation, tend to be female, adolescent, and orphaned. In exchange for money or gifts, relatives or acquaintances often facilitate the trafficking of a child to an urban center for prostitution. Children are sometimes trafficked as a consequence of soliciting help from strangers such as truck drivers.
Many Zambian child laborers, particularly those in the agriculture, domestic service, and fishing sectors, are also victims of human trafficking. Traffickers most often operate through ad hoc, flexible networks of relatives, truck drivers, business people, cross-border traders, and religious leaders.
Organized rings offer Zambian women false job or marriage offers, then traffic them to South Africa via Zimbabwe for sexual exploitation, or to Europe via Malawi. Zambia's geographic location, porous borders, and lax immigration enforcement make it a nexus for transnational trafficking from the Great Lakes region and Congo to South Africa for agricultural labor.
Adults and children from Malawi and Mozambique are occasionally trafficked to Zambia for forced agricultural labor. The Government of Zambia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so.
During the reporting period, the government made strong efforts to increase and improve law enforcement efforts against trafficking offenders, to raise public awareness of trafficking, and address demand.
