[6] Girls most commonly work as domestic servants, while boys perform forced labour on cocoa and coffee farms where they are exploited and abused.

[6] However, children are often kidnapped, sold into slavery by their families or trafficked from poorer neighbouring countries such as Burkina Faso and Mali to more affluent areas of Ivory Coast.

[7] Children, usually boys, work to burn and clear fields, cut down trees, spray pesticides and use sharp tools to break open cocoa pods - all of which are determined to be hazardous activities by national law or regulation.

[7] Côte d'Ivoire is a common cross border trafficking hub for smuggling legal and illegal small arms between countries.

[9][10] Weapons seized in various countries including Burkina Faso, northern Nigeria and central Mali can be traced back to stocks originating from Ivory Coast.

They often travel unarmed on motorbikes through unmanned and uncontrolled border crossings carrying small amounts of illegal arms.

[10] Government forces have the ability to rent and divert military-grade weapons, such as AK-pattern assault rifles, to outlawed and illegitimate users.

[10] Other actors involved in the illicit transport of small arms include criminals, tribal networks and corrupt political officials.

Such workers are dependent on connections and communication from cross border friendships, family and ethnic ties about movement of security forces.

[10] The terrorist organisation al-Murabitoun trafficked assault rifles through Burkina Faso and Mali into Ivory Coast to be used in the Grand-Bassam shootings in 2016.

[8][15] The women and girls are then forced into sex trafficking in order to repay their exorbitant debts of about 1.5-2 million CFA francs (US$3,000-4,000) from the travel to Ivory Coast.

[14] Ivory Coast, working with neighbouring countries, have increased their efforts to investigate, combat and prosecute sex traffickers and their networks.

[17] Gbagbo forces and supporters attacked northerners, Muslims, West African immigrants and United Nations staff using weapons such as mortars and heavy machine guns.

[18] Ouattara forces burnt villages in the west of Ivory Coast, attacked, raped and killed civilians and Gbagbo supporters during the conflict.

[18] Prolonged fighting in Abidjan and surrounding towns prompted the United Nations and French troops to launch air strikes and other military operations on 4 April against Gbagbo and his forces to prevent the use of heavy weapons in the conflict and to protect the civilian population.

[20][18][16] The International Criminal Court declared Gbagbo and Ouattara to be investigated for multiple accounts of human rights violations upon the failure to protect Ivory Coast's civilians.

[18][19] In August 2018, President Ouattarra released 800 prisoners involved in the 2010-11 post-electoral crisis, including military officers, former cabinet members and Simone and Laurent Gbagbo.

[26] The mass shooting occurred at a beach resort near L'Etoile du Sud hotel, about 40 km from the country's economic capital Abidjan.

[22][26] The motivation for the attack was reported to be to boost the terrorist group's media profile and to exemplify their recently improved operational capabilities.

The Ivorian government nominated $1 million to assist the hotel, transport and tourism industry in Grand-Bassam to help compensate for the economic loses caused by the attack.