[1] In 2010 Rwanda was a source and, to a lesser extent, destination country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation.
Rwandan girls were exploited in involuntary domestic servitude within the country; some of these children experienced physical or sexual abuse within their employer's household.
In limited cases, this trafficking was facilitated by women who supplied females to clients or by loosely organized prostitution networks, some operating in secondary schools and universities.
Rwandan children were also trafficked to Uganda, Tanzania, and other countries in the region for forced agricultural labor, commercial sexual exploitation, and domestic servitude, sometimes after being recruited by peers.
Unlike in past years, there was no indication in 2009 that the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) duped or recruited Congolese men and boys from Rwanda-based refugee camps, as well as Rwandans from nearby towns, into forced labor and soldiering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
During 2009, the government enacted a new labour code prohibiting forced labor and the enslavement of children; advanced penal code revisions containing anti-trafficking provisions through the legislative process; opened a care center for victims of gender-based violence, including trafficking victims; and launched a public awareness campaign on the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
Additional training is greatly needed to increase officials' awareness of the nature of human trafficking and to provide practical skills for responding to it.
[4] In 2023 the Organised Crime Index gave Rwanda a score of 5 out of 10 for human trafficking, noting that tighter border security had reduced the number of victims being taken out of the country.
The Rwandan Demobilization and Reintegration Commission (RDRC), with World Bank and limited government funding, continued operation of a center for child ex-combatants in Muhazi, which provided three months of care to children returned from the DRC by the UN Mission to the Congo.
This one-year pilot project, located in the National Police Hospital, provided services to 367 victims of gender-based violence between July and December 2009, 218 of whom were children.
The government provided training on gender sensitivity and sexual exploitation to Rwandan troops prior to their deployment on UN peacekeeping missions in Darfur.