[2] In 2010 the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo did not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and did not make significant efforts to do so.
Congolese girls are forced into prostitution in tent- or hut-based brothels or informal camps - including in markets and mining areas - by loosely organized networks, gangs, and madams.
Some members of Batwa, or pygmy groups, are subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude in agriculture, mining, and domestic work in eastern DRC.
[2] Indigenous and foreign armed militia groups, notably, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), Patriotes Résistants Congolais (PARECO), various local militia (Mai-Mai), the Alliance of Patriots for a Free and Sovereign Congo (APCLS), and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), continued to abduct and forcibly recruit Congolese men, women, and children to serve as laborers, porters, domestics, combatants, and in sexual servitude.
In 2009, the LRA continued operations in areas in and near the DRC's Orientale Province, violently abducting more than 1,700 Congolese citizens, including children.
Likewise, abducted Sudanese and Central African citizens experienced conditions of forced labor and sexual servitude at the hands of the LRA after being forcibly taken to the DRC.
In addition, FARDC elements pressed hundreds of civilians, including children, into forced labor to carry ammunition, supplies, and looted goods, to fetch water and firewood, to serve as guides, or to construct military facilities and temporary huts.
[2] Elements of the national army perpetrated severe human trafficking abuses in 2010, including forcibly recruiting hundreds of children and using local populations to perform forced labor.
Furthermore, a number of FARDC commanders accused of child soldiering and forced labor abuses in previous reporting periods remained in leadership positions within the army and were not investigated, disciplined in any way, or brought to trial.
The government continued to lack sufficient financial, technical, and human resources to effectively address trafficking crimes and provide basic levels of security and social services in most parts of the country.
Some advances, however, were noted during the reporting period in demobilizing children from fighting factions, including from the national army, and in sensitizing military officials about the illegality of committing forced labor abuses.
In the First Congo War, the conflict that resulted from this invasion, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, leader of the AFDL and opponent to President Mobutu, took power in May 1997.
In the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the prominent form of human trafficking is “conflict-based sexual slavery of women and girls.
Examples of actions committed include “victims being raped in front of relatives, a pregnant woman having her fetus ripped out and at least one victim being forced to perform sex acts on a family member before being executed.”[11] In 2017, the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) confirmed 804 cases of sexual violence (507 women, 265 girls, 30 men, and 2 boys).
A commander in the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda was convicted for utilizing sexual violence as a war crime in Nzovu.
The government's judicial writ did not cover many areas of the country where human trafficking occurs, and it remained hamstrung by a critical shortage of magistrates, clerks, and lawyers.
Colonel 106), a former Mai-Mai commander suspected of insurrection and war crimes, including the conscription of children, appeared before a military tribunal in early 2010 and remains in detention at Malaka Prison in Kinshasa; the court awaits the conclusion of the investigation before setting a trial date.
In November 2009, the UN Group of Experts on the DRC published the names of 21 current FARDC commanders alleged to have committed human rights abuses.
Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Pierre Biyoyo, formerly of the Mudundu-40 armed group and the first person convicted by Congolese courts of conscripting children, has not been re-apprehended since his escape from prison in June 2006 and is currently serving as the Commander of FARDC's Sector 3 of the Amani Leo campaign in Walungu, South Kivu.
[2] "Captain Gaston", an armed group commander allegedly responsible for the mid-2006 murder of an NGO child protection advocate, remained at large in Kitshanga, North Kivu, during the reporting period.
[2] During this process, the National Demobilization Agency (UEPN-DDR), in cooperation with the UN Mission to the DRC (MONUC), separated and transported any identified children to NGO-run centers for temporary housing and vocational training.
The Ministry of Human Rights drafted, but did not disseminate, a document on the country's current trafficking situation, including challenges to addressing it and recommendations for action.
In July 2009, the FARDC's Goma headquarters issued a press statement reminding all soldiers and commanders of their duty to protect the civilian population and noted "zero tolerance" for human rights abuses, specifically citing the crime of forced labor, among others.
In April 2010, Major Andoga, of the 1331th Battalion, conducted a sensitization campaign on human rights violations and the military's zero tolerance policy in both Kinshasa and the eastern provinces.
[2] With UNICEF funding, the members of the Katanga committee researched, drafted, and printed a brochure on its mandate that was distributed to local authorities, religious and traditional leaders, and community organizations as part of an awareness-raising campaign.