Northern Chad is a key hub for African migration, with Faya—its largest city—also being its most cosmopolitan. In Faya, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) operates a transit centre for vulnerable migrants, including victims of trafficking and exploitation.
To mark World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) highlighted the evolution of criminal networks now leveraging digital tools to recruit victims—primarily through fake job offers and forced cybercrime.
Criminal syndicates across West and Central Africa are adapting their recruitment tactics, relying increasingly on digital platforms and online fraud schemes, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned on Thursday.
In a press release issued for World Day Against Trafficking in Persons—observed this year under the theme “Trapped Behind the Screen”—the agency called for stronger, coordinated, victim-centered responses to address this rapidly shifting threat.
“Human trafficking is evolving in West and Central Africa, and our collective response must evolve with it,” said Sylvia Ekra, IOM Regional Director for West and Central Africa.
According to Ekra, whether an individual is exploited in a home, on a farm, in a mine, on the street, or behind a screen, they are a victim of trafficking whenever coercion, deception, or abuse is present.
She also urged authorities to treat individuals forced into online scamming or other criminal activities as victims in need of protection, guidance, and support, rather than as offenders.
The IOM pointed out that online scam centers—well-documented in Asia—are now emerging as a growing threat in West and Central Africa. Traffickers rely on false promises of overseas employment, tourist visas framed as job opportunities, document confiscation, debt bondage, and financial pressure to entrap their victims.
Between January and July 16, 2026, IOM assisted 1,513 trafficking victims in the region, including 1,022 women and 491 men. Women accounted for more than two-thirds of those supported, predominantly in cases of sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, forced marriage, and labor exploitation.
Men and boys are also targeted, particularly in mining, agriculture, forced labour, forced begging, fraudulent recruitment schemes, and coerced criminality.
Between 2017 and 2026, IOM assisted 12,308 victims of trafficking in West and Central Africa, including 3,185 men.
The agency stressed that human trafficking is not limited to movement outside the continent.
Four of the top ten destination countries for IOM-assisted victims between 2017 and 2026 are within West and Central Africa, reflecting the scale of intra-African trafficking dynamics.
“Trafficking networks operate across borders, migration corridors, communities, digital spaces, and labour markets. Protection cannot stop at a border or at a single point of return,” Ekra emphasised.
In response, IOM advocates a route-based strategy to identify and support vulnerable individuals along their entire journey through referral mechanisms, legal assistance, psychosocial support, temporary shelter, and voluntary return and reintegration programs.
Through its regional initiatives, the organisation works alongside governments, civil society, and community partners to bolster protection systems, including transit centers, migrant assistance channels, and public awareness campaigns.
IOM also stressed the imperative of prevention by addressing root vulnerabilities exploited by traffickers—such as unemployment, poverty, social exclusion, lack of education and vocational skills, and the absence of safe, legal migration pathways.
In a region where mobility remains a cornerstone of economic and social integration, the agency maintains that combating human trafficking must be part of a broader commitment to improving migration governance.
AC/Sf/lb/as/APA