Human trafficking into the Southern African region

Throughout the course of 2020 and 2021, there have been developments in the transnational organised crime activity focused on the trafficking of Ethiopian nationals from Ethiopia to Southern Africa. Organised crime groups have developed new methods that exploit vulnerabilities in the regions of Eastern and Southern Africa to facilitate this illegal activity.

This summary will provide an overview of findings relating to this illegal activity and the associated methodologies. It is based on a criminal intelligence analysis conducted by the Malawi police into an organised trafficking in human beings network following the occurrence of a large number of fatalities.The analysis focused on identifying and tackling the transnational organised criminal network associated to this activity. The Malawi criminal intelligence analytical unit (CIAU) and the ENACT-INTERPOL team combined efforts to analyse intelligence and identify elements of the network in Malawi and other member countries in Eastern and Southern Africa on the human trafficking route.

Thanks to the support of the European Union, the INTERPOL ENACT Project continues to develop analytical capacity in INTERPOL member countries across Africa. As part of this project, INTERPOL assisted the Malawi police to establish their analytical unit in 2018 and has provided training, guidance, and mentoring since.