MONROVIA, Liberia—An Ivorian man is standing trial in Monrovia over human trafficking allegations in the first trial since Liberia was downgraded to the US State Department’s tier two Trafficking in Persons Watch List after the Weah administration cut off funding to trafficking prosecutions.
By Anthony Stephens with New Narratives
The US government has warned the new administration of President Joseph Boakai that it faces major cuts in US aid if it does not step up efforts to combat human trafficking and support victims.
Ivorian national Yacouba Sawadogo, 36, is also the first foreign national to face trial after Liberia’s 2021 revision of its trafficking law which mandates a minimum sentence of 20 years prison for anyone found guilty of the charge.
State prosecutors say Mr. Sawadogo conspired with co-accused, Foday Kabia and Ibrahim Sorie Bangura – Sierra Leonean nationals – to deceive 11 of their compatriots to travel to Liberia between 2022 and 2023 under the pretense that they would travel on to Canada, “where they would work and earn money to better their lives.”
Prosecutors say they do not know the whereabouts of the co-accused. The indictment alleges the men received between $US1,000 – $3000 from each of the victims under the deception that they would process their travel documents to Canada. Transporting a person under deception for financial gain constitutes the crime of trafficking.
One of victims told Criminal Court “A,” which is hearing the case, that he and the other alleged trafficking victims had been threatened with physical punishment, intimidated and deceived by Mr. Sawadogo and the other accused. The man also alleged that the accused had confined them to a fenced compound and that they were denied food.
“They took our phones and documents and said none of us should leave the compound they had taken us to,” said the witness. The identity of witnesses has been withheld to protect them from retribution.
Another witness made the same allegations of inhumane treatment against Mr. Sawadogo and his alleged co-conspirators and said they been warned by the accused that if they left the compound, Liberian “immigration will arrest us.” The men said they were also told that: “Liberia prison is not like Sierra Leone prison because this prison is in an island, so if we are caught, our family will no longer know about us. Since that day, we are totally frustrated. From that day, we have had miserable lives.”
Asked by Cllr. Sumo Kutu Akoi, lead prosecutor in the case, as to whether he had travelled to Canada the witness said: “No. I asked for receipt. He said, ‘no receipt.’ We couldn’t see any good result. So, we decided to ask for our money.”
The alleged victim said they managed to escape the compound by jumping over the fence. The man said they then explained their story to people they met, including a man whose uncle is a Liberian senator. The man took them to the police station to lodge a formal complaint against the alleged traffickers.
Mr. Sawadogo told investigators and the court that he was an employee of Q-NET, a Hong Kong based global e-commerce company that the Liberian National Police has accused of trafficking people. A local court dismissed a case against the company in 2022.
Mr. Sawadogo pleaded “not guilty” at the start of the trial and repeated his innocence when he took the stand in his own defence.
“I do not know how those people came in Liberia,” said Mr. Sawadogo, who said he came to Liberia in 2021 from his native Ivory Coast by the Ganta Crossing in Nimba County, which borders the two countries. “I never received any amount from those people, and I do not know how they started their training.”
Mr. Sawadgo’s lawyers, led by Cllr. Sennay Carlor, questioned the credibility of the witnesses, raising doubts about inconsistencies between their testimonies in court and statements given to the police about dates of the alleged crimes, amounts paid, and documents they had given to the accused.
The case took a surprise turn when Cllr. Carlor and other defence lawyers accused the prosecution of intimidating their witnesses, a complaint they lodged with the Supreme Court. State prosecutors claimed that two of the witnesses were Mr. Sawadgo’s accomplices and threatened to arrest and prosecute them. But Yamie Quiqui Gbeisay, the chamber justice, ruled against them and ordered criminal court “A” to allow the witnesses to testify, court records show. Only one of the accused witnesses testified, denying state witnesses’ allegations against Mr. Sawadgo.
The Boakai administration has looked to signal its determination of fighting human trafficking by prosecuting this case after what experts said was an underwhelming performance on the issue in the past year. Liberia was downgraded to tier 2 watchlist in the 2024 annual U.S. government’s Trafficking in Persons report, having failed to undertake any meaningful initiatives in the previous reporting year in the areas of victims’ protection and prosecution among others.
Human trafficking prosecutions stalled late last year when funding for prosecutions dried up. The $230,170 budget for trafficking was slashed to $15,000 in the run up to the 2023 presidential and legislative elections. The funds were diverted, allegedly to help plug a shortfall in funds to run the elections. (A number of leading Weah government officials have recently been accused of stealing millions from government coffers by creating fake employees and other scams, by the country’s independent anti-corruption agencies). Liberia could lose “all non-essential aid,” covering its health and labor sectors if it does not improve its perormance in terms of prosecuting human trafficking cases, creating awareness agaisnt the issue and providing victims protection and support among others.
The Ministry of Labor, which houses Liberia’s Anti-trafficking unit, said it was hopeful of getting more funding from the national government to support its anti-human trafficking activities. But the unit’s 2024 budget of $US32,032 remains unchanged, even under the revised/recast budget submitted to the Legislature in August. The recast budget, approved by the Legislature in September, has not been made public.
Cases have also been slowed because victims have refused to testify against their alleged traffickers because the government had not provided them with any security. Several of the victims told FPA/New Narratives they had been offered bribes by the family of an alleged trafficker.
The Sawadogo case is also the first Liberia is prosecuting in recent years with no connection to Oman, where more than 300 Liberian women were lured under deception that they would get high-paying jobs. They were subsequently locked into contracts as housemaids working as long as 20 hours a day, for little pay in degrading conditions. Many reported sexual and physical abuse.
After the State Department downgrade, the Boakai government says it’s undertaken a series of measures to improve Liberia’s antihuman trafficking record. In addition to Mr. Sawadogo’s trial the government repatriated a Sierra Leonean woman, who had been in the country in a safe house since 2018 when her father was convicted for trafficking after he attempted to sell her for more than $US100,000 in Liberia.
The state has put rebuttal witnesses on the stand, with final arguments by state and defence counsels due to be made early next week. The jury is expected to consider its verdict also hopefully later in the week.
This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the “Investigating Liberia” project. Funding was provided by the Swedish Embassy in Liberia. The funder had no say in the story’s content.
