Human trafficking discourse is complex

HUMAN TRAFFICKING

I appreciated reading the DM editorial of July 15, 2014 on this subject and the clarification made by  Jacob Siminyu from the Directorate of Citizenship and immigration Control about concrete actions being taken to curb human trafficking at national level.

Understandably, the discourse of human trafficking is a very complex one and it cannot be effectively resolved at the policy level only although such interventions are imperative.  The global human trafficking and trade in humans for labor or any other purposes formed the basis of one of my Global Health studies. Indeed, the common pre-exposing risk for humans to be harvested for trafficking from any society starts with the social conditions in which they subsist. 

To fully understand the complexity of this problem, one needs to undertake a socio-ecological framework approach to systematically unpack the pervasive nature of this lucrative vice. The socio-ecological framework would allow a critical analysis that focuses on individual level challenges, interpersonal (such as relationships, cultures etc), community level loopholes, societal factors and public policies that make human trafficking possible. Another level of critical analysis would be the supranation level where national, regional and international instruments, policies and efforts can converge to curb human trafficking.

However, it is essential to emphasize that poverty, lack of skills and broken social safety nets – simply put; the social determinants of health are also the determinants of vulnerability to being trafficked. In Uganda today, voluntary trafficking is taking place because of nationwide despair among the elites.

The rate of unemployment among youths and the semi-elite Ugandans inevitably makes them very susceptible to being trafficked.  In 2013 62% of the Ugandan youths were reported unemployed and yet 78% of Uganda’s population is under the age of 30 years. Almost half the Ugandan population is below the age of 24 years. The prospect of experiencing unemployment makes the youths to develop interests for future prospects outside the country. The process of fulfilling such ambitions also makes them a very vulnerable group.

A study by Amy Hagopia and colleagues in Uganda which was published in 2014 in Health Affairs Journal revealed that 1 in every 4 Ugandan health professionals aspired to leave Uganda for any destination where they could improve on their professional outlook. But a much more important study conducted among Ugandan Nursing students was published in 2008 by Lisa Nguyen et al. revealed that 70% of nursing students expressed desires to work abroad after graduation and another 24% revealed ambitions to work elsewhere in Africa upon graduation. In all these studies, participants cited poor pay, poor working conditions and not being valued fully for their services.

A group like these, comprising of the country’s most qualified workforce are the primary victims of human trafficking because they are driven away by chronic failures at home. Most of them are not aware that their credentials are not valued in Europe or North America until they get trapped there. Majority of them voluntarily register with agencies to be ferried abroad for menial jobs which subsequently transforms into forced labor and being held in servitude.

While Mr. Siminyu was upbeat in his enumeration of the high level interventions being developed, there are many gaps beneath policy instruments. There is need for a systematic and collaborative interventions designed with various state and none state actors at all levels to stabilize society.

On top of the agenda should be the redistribution of resources, snubbing corruption, creating conducive work conditions, setting minimum wage, affirmative action for young women to build a pathway to employment, providing vocational training to youths and ensuring that diverse opportunity ventures are opened for youths practice innovation.

Lastly, public policies targeting human trafficking should be formulated with the focus on removing inequalities and inequities at all levels of society. Key among these are building individual skills and community capacity, establishing an inter-agency coordination efforts to curb human trafficking.

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US-AFRICA Summit 2014: An empty rhetoric

US-AFRICA SUMMIT, 2014

Listening to Obama make a fool of Africa and its leaders was the most scintillating highlight of the US-African summit being hosted in Washington DC. Obama opined, and I quote “We don’t look to Africa simply for its natural resources. We recognize Africa for its greatest resource which is its people and its talents and its potential”. While many Africans clapped their hands in approval, some few clever ones knew that this is an empty rhetorical that dominate global economic policies towards Africa. Available historical accounts of US-Africa relation shows the contrary as this article shall elucidate.

To contextualize the US-African summit 2014, one needs to understand that this conference is a direct counter to the increasing economic influence of China in Africa. The US and its allies are genuinely frightened of the rate at which China is making concrete investment and control over Africa’s crude oil and mineral resources.

By 2009, China was already Africa’s main trading partner, surpassing USA. In 2012, China’s trade volume with Africa hit US$ 198.5 billion mark while US’ was only $99.8 billion. That is twice as much trading already and yet China’s trade with Africa is only 5% of its total globe trade. It is estimated that more than 80% of China’s $98.3 billion of import from Africa in 2011 were in minerals, raw resources and crude oil.

China’s trade with Africa has been soaring in the last decade or so, while USA has been meddling in Africa for centuries. Why then is Obama misinforming the world about US interests and presence in Africa as if US is a new entrant in exploiting the continent?

For many centuries, the developed West sustained very unfavourable trade relations with Africa best described as bullied exploitation and economic repression. For the most, the current predicament of Africa and its lagged economic progress is mainly attributable to these centuries of exploitative bullying from the US, UK, France and most of their colonial apparatuses that continue to meddle in Africa’s internal affairs.

Therefore, Obama’s claim that the US looks beyond oil and mineral resources should be treated with the contempt it deserves. The basis of any positive economic relationship with Africa has been hinged on crude oil and raw materials. The US has footprints in each and every country in Africa, stable or unstable. They are there primarily and precisely for economic benefit, not to develop human resources or African infrastructure. Otherwise, Africa would not have been as poor and deficient in all internal aspects to compete favourably in the international markets.

Obama offers US$ 33 Billion in new trade partnerships to ensure that US goods and services gain access to African markets. This is another baloney. One only needs to read John Perkins’ 2004 book: “Confession of economic hitman”, Jeffrey Sach’s  2005 “End of Poverty: economic possibilities for our times” and Health Poverty Action’s 2014 report, “Honest Account? The true story of African billion dollars losses”, to unpack the worthlessness of this Obama’s US-Africa trade package.

Mr. Perkins is unequivocal in his narration of how the US has always used underhand methods such as assassinations, cultivating civil unrest leading to regime change, paying bribe to influential leaders and where possible, supplying arms and protection of crooked leaders to manipulate co-operations of all kinds from any country in the world. 

Perkins provides numerous examples around the world where the US is still involved or where it left tragic footprints in pursuit of its interests. According to Sachs, the true value of American foreign aid that reached the person in Africa in 2002 was only 6 cents after all deductions. 

Both Perkins and Sachs show that most of the money that the US offers to Africa, either as aid for cooperation or grants go directly to US agencies, paying off “expatriates”, deduction for debts owed and financing infrastructure that serves American interests in those countries.

The Health Poverty Action report shows that for every US$ 30 billion in foreign Aid that Africa receives annually, it losses US$192 billions. The money is lost through loan and debt repaying of $46.5 billion. Other losses include $35.3 Billion in tax evasion and other illicit financial flows facilitated through tax havens; $17 billion in illegal logging; $3 billion in remittances; $46.3 billion repatriation of profits made by multinational companies; $1.3 billion in illegal fishing and Africa incurs a loss of $36.6 billion as a result of climate change and $6 billion as a result of brain drain.

We conclude that this summit could be fruitful if Obama announced at least 85% of US debt relieve to Africa; expanded US market access beyond existing mechanisms such as AGOA, Power Africa Initiatives, a declaration to respect African autonomy over its resources and removal of Agricultural subsidies and protective mechanism to inhibit Agro-based imports to the US markets.

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Evidence now shows it is Africa donating Aid to rich countries

AID DEBATE

Proponents of aid to Africa will have difficulties convincing the world that Africa really need empathy and financial bailout from rich countries. It has emerged that Africa is indeed the continent that is sustaining and aiding the world with its vast resources and potentials. 

A report by Health Poverty Action released recently shows that Africa is receiving US$134 billion in aid every year and it pays out US$192 billions in return to the wealthy nations. This means every year, Africa donates US$58billions to the West. This is a compelling case which illustrates clearly that donor aid is not meant to develop Africa, but to create favorable environment for mockery and subsequent exploitation.

The situation is made worse by African leaders who are positioned as appendages of these Western government’s mechanisms of securing their national interests. The aid arrangement ensures that African interest is subordinate to the realization of ending poverty and the likes of Prof Jeffrey Sachs should not mislead the world that they have magic formula for ending poverty anywhere using foreign aid. 

Even then, the prevailing aid debate is devoid of a critical assessment of the dynamics of supremacy of foreign control using aid in the realization of foreign interests.

It’s a wonder that Uganda with the highest concentration of NGO per capita in Africa would be presented as a success story by the World Bank and donor community. If the Ugandan economy is indeed growing at 5% per annum, how come Ugandans are not realizing the benefits in critical social services like health care?

Foreign aid is a ploy of hoodwinking the populace so as to soften the ground for resource exploitation. Take for instance that all contracts Uganda signs with direct foreign investors are so shrouded in secrecy and yet Donors are not conditioning aid to foster transparency in natural resource exploitation. 

And, this is surprising given the fact that the British government critically condemned the Chinese- DRC US$6 billion resource – for – infrastructure swap, arguing that it was a bad deal, shrouded in secrecy and in bad faith - claiming that the people of Congo were at the short end of the stick.

To a discerning audience it is clear that the Congolese – Chinese resource deal which truly was similar to the Ugandan - Tullow Heritage oil deal in their lack of transparency was criticized by the British Government because the exploiting parties were not Western based companies.

The report by Health Poverty Action, “Honest Accounts? The true story of Africa’s billion dollar loss - 2014” is a must read.  According to Health Poverty Action, there is unconscionable capital drain to the West from Africa in excess of US $58 billion per year which could service Africa’s foreign debts and bilateral loans sufficiently.  After all, the US aid amounts to only 6 cents per African per year according to Jeffrey Sachs (2005, p.310). 

It is surprising that the so-called economists who claim to be so concerned about Africa are not arguing strongly for plugging these drains.

We may appear too hard on proponents of aid to Africa. But coming from countries benefiting from the capital drain from Africa, they may be fighting not only for their own preservation but for the economic interest of their countries. It is in the realization of Western economic interests that aid is used as bait for compliance of Africans to surrender its resources. 

Certainly, if aid was to develop welfare services for poor communities it is difficult to argue for withdrawing it for political convenience. Why would the aid be withdrawn only when anti-homosexuality bill was passed in Uganda but not the draconian Public Order Management Bill which stifles democratic governance?

A simple conclusion is that the discourse of aid is both racialized and politicized. It is in the political realm that we find strong representation of western scholars blaming all the ills that are associated with Western puppets in Africa on Africans. For instance, President Museveni, with all the numerous reports of gross human rights abuses by reputable agencies such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Red Cross etc, is rewarded with praises and more military aid.

Foreign aid, good as it sounds, has the soft under belly of foreign control and western interests which its proponents tactfully conceal. If the West really itches to give aid to Africa, let them start off by total debt relief for Africa which remains a thorn in the developmental flesh.

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