As reported over the past five years, CAR is a source and transit country for children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking, women subjected to forced prostitution, and adults subjected to forced labor. Observers report most victims are CAR citizens exploited within the country, and a smaller number transported between CAR and Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sudan, or South Sudan. Traffickers, as well as transient merchants and herders, subject children to domestic servitude, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced labor in agriculture, artisanal gold and diamond mines, shops, and street vending. Within the country, children are at risk of becoming victims of forced labor, and Ba’aka (pygmy) minorities are at risk of becoming victims of forced agricultural work, especially in the region around the Lobaye rainforest. Girls are at risk of being exploited in commercial sex in urban centers. Girls forced into marriages are often subjected to domestic servitude, sexual slavery, and possibly sex trafficking.
Surges in violent conflict in recent years resulted in chronic instability and the displacement of more than one million people, increasing the vulnerability of men, women, and children to forced labor and sex trafficking. In 2017, almost 700,000 people remained internally displaced inside the country and approximately 540,000 individuals sought refuge in neighboring countries. This is an increase from 402,000 internally displaced people and 464,000 refugees the previous year. An international organization has identified more than 10,000 refugees residing in CAR and more than 45,000 refugee returnees spontaneously returned to CAR in 2017. The government’s lack of control and presence in much of the country impairs its ability to effectively combat the worst forms of child labor nationwide. There is limited information about the forms of exploitation believed to have increased as a result of ongoing conflict.
The recruitment and use of children by armed groups, at times through force, has been widely documented; however, there were no verified cases of government-affiliated forces recruiting or using child soldiers during the reporting period. An international organization reported between 6,000 and 10,000 children were recruited by armed groups during the latest conflict through 2015. The government ratified the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict in September 2017 and ratified the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child in July 2016. The Ministry of Justice announced measures to incorporate into national legislation provisions to criminalize actions committed by members of armed groups to include the recruitment or use of children in armed conflict.
United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) has more than 10,000 peacekeeping forces and police in CAR to protect civilians, provide security, support humanitarian operations, and promote and protect human rights, among other objectives; however, allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeepers within MINUSCA persisted during the reporting period. The UN investigated six alleged sexual exploitation cases of MINUSCA peacekeepers, police, and UN civilian staff. More than 100 cases were reported since MINUSCA’s inception in September 2014. Peacekeepers from the DRC and the Republic of Congo allegedly perpetrated the majority of these 50 reported cases.
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan rebel group that operates in CAR’s eastern regions, continued to abduct boys and girls for use as cooks, porters, concubines, and combatants during the reporting period. Due to regional counter-LRA operations, LRA activities decreased compared to previous years, but the group remains a threat.