Every year, the U.S. State Department produces its Trafficking in Persons report to provide a comprehensive, global assessment of human trafficking and government efforts worldwide to prevent trafficking, investigate and prosecute traffickers, and protect survivors. In its June 2024 report, the U.S. State Department downgraded Sudan’s standing from Tier 2 to the lowest ranking, Tier 3, meaning the country is “not doing enough to act against human trafficking and not compliant with the U.S Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA).”
Sudan is an African country whose humanitarian crisis and brutal civil war are frequently overshadowed by other global conflicts. This spotlight piece focuses on the forced labor and sex trafficking occurring in Sudan to share information on Sudan’s crisis and the victims being overlooked.
Sudan’s History of Slavery
Slavery has been a part of Sudan’s history for thousands of years but worsened recently during the second Sudanese civil war in the 1980s, as tensions between the north and south escalated. The government often encouraged the complex network of sellers and buyers, which practically turned it into an enterprise. Even the state military took part in selling women and children from the south to become domestic servants or farm laborers in the north. Younger victims were often lured under the false pretense of employment and then transported for child labor.
Sudan has long been a transit point for migrants from Horn of Africa countries such as Eritrea and Ethiopia. The U.S. State Department reported that smugglers often coerce migrants into forced labor or sex trafficking, while traffickers compel women from these countries to work in private homes in Sudan’s urban centers. “Well-organized and cross-border criminal syndicates forced some Ethiopian women into commercial sex in Khartoum [Sudan’s capital] by manipulating debts and other forms of coercion,” the report stated. Unaccompanied migrant children are also exploited and forced to beg or work in factories, mines, or on farms.
It took years of effort to target the human trafficking operations that were ingrained in the country. In 2014, Sudan passed its first law combating human trafficking. It subsequently developed additional policies and strategies against human trafficking, such as starting a National Committee to Combat Trafficking and addressing the considerable number of individuals living in poverty. Pervasive poverty meant domestic slavery had become so common that most people were desensitized. Even with new legislation, Sudan needed to work to address the social inequities and practices that allowed human trafficking to continue.
Humanitarian Crisis Exacerbates Trafficking
In 2019, Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, who had ruled for thirty years, was overthrown in a coup carried out by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the country’s military, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary group. The next few years saw a leadership struggle between the SAF and the RSF as the military leadership in charge of the transitional government refused to hand over power to a civilian transition administration. Fighting broke out in April 2023, and a civil war between the SAF and RSF has been ongoing since.
As early as August 2023, there were reports “of sexual exploitation, slavery, trafficking, rape, and acts tantamount to enforced disappearances,” as well as “prostitution and forced marriage of women and girls.” Gender-based violence has long been used as a tool of war, and the scale of the violence in Sudan is likely underreported as many women and girls do not come forward due to stigmatization or for fear of reprisal.
As of February 2024, there were 25 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. A reported 20 million Sudanese children were not attending school, and 14 million children, 3 million of which were under the age of 5, were suffering from acute malnutrition. These conditions exposed them to “the risk of sale, sexual abuse, exploitation, family separation, abduction, trafficking and recruitment and use by armed groups.”
In March of 2024, the United Nations noted increased reports of sexual slavery and trafficking in Sudan amidst the deteriorating humanitarian crisis. There were also reports of forced and child marriages, young women and girls being sold at slave markets in areas controlled by armed groups, gender-based violence (including rape and unwanted pregnancies), and militaries recruiting young boys as combatants.
Over eight million internally displaced persons are trying to survive in Sudan, most of whom gather in sites such as schools and informal settlements with limited support from aid organizations and shortages of food, water and medical supplies. Victims cannot “access the assistance or care they need, due to a combination of insecurity, lack of sufficient humanitarian assistance and lack of access to those affected by the conflict by humanitarian actors.”
In September of 2024, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan produced its first report. The report found the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces were “responsible for patterns of large-scale violations, including indiscriminate and direct attacks carried out through airstrikes and shelling against civilians, schools, hospitals, communication networks and vital water and electricity supplies.” Civilians were targeted “through rape and other forms of sexual violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, as well as torture and ill-treatment.” The Fact-Finding Mission also reported having “reasonable grounds to believe that RSF and its allied militias committed the additional war crimes of rape, sexual slavery, and pillage, as well as ordering the displacement of the civilian population and the recruitment of children below 15 in hostilities.”
Trafficking Prevention Efforts Cease
Prior to the outbreak of the civil war, Sudan was a Tier 2 country in the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons 2023 report, working on investigations, prosecutions, and convictions, even though there were no investigations into officials for the recruitment of child soldiers. Sudan was falling behind in targeting forced labor, and there were inconsistencies in victim protection criminal justice responses. However, many were pleased that at least some efforts were underway.
The 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report was updated to reflect the horrific acts of war, bringing Sudan down to a Tier 3 ranking. According to the report, not only has the government “significantly reduced its anti-trafficking efforts as a result of the conflict,” but both the SAF and the RSF have “employed or recruited child soldiers, including children who were compulsorily recruited.” Reports say children transport ammunition and conduct surveillance activities in addition to taking combat roles and operating checkpoints.
Experts also note some government officials, law enforcement agents, and border officers “exploited women and girls fleeing the country in sex trafficking in exchange for visas or safe passage” and “were complicit in or otherwise profited from trafficking crimes specifically related to exploiting migrants along Sudan’s borders.”
The Counter-Trafficking Unit is one of the many government institutions that has experienced operational constraints since the outbreak of conflict. The government has not:
- Investigated any cases of human trafficking
- Investigated any government officials for forced recruitment of child soldiers
- Reported any measures to identify or protect trafficking victims
- Continued prior initiatives meant to inform or educate the public on human trafficking
- Provided anti-trafficking training to law enforcement
Sudan faced an uphill battle endeavoring to combat human trafficking in an environment in which slavery was a common practice. Unfortunately, attempts to strengthen legal frameworks, develop the government’s capacity to address trafficking, improve assistance for victims, and change societal norms have stalled out amidst the civil war that has raged since April 2023. The conflict has resulted in a humanitarian crisis that only exacerbates vulnerability to exploitation.
For more on the war in Sudan, see this overview from the Council on Foreign Relations. For more on global spotlights on human trafficking, see these spotlights on China, Thailand, and Syria, or visit Stop Modern Day Slavery’s library.
Originally from New Jersey, Corinne has always loved learning about different cultures and her family’s ancestral roots across Europe. She earned her Bachelors in International Studies at the College of New Jersey and recently received her Masters in International Relations in Madrid. She currently works for an international organization at the UN in New York, and hopes to continue working on important global issues and their intersections with gender equality. In her free time, Corinne is likely to be on a hiking trail, at the gym, in the kitchen baking and listening to music, or on the couch with a good book.
