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The First West African Workshop on Human Trafficking from October 29th - 31st 2003 marked the beginning of a series of meetings to be held on human trafficking within the West Africa sub region. Representatives of organizations from Benin, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, The Gambia and Togo participated, as well as members of the Global Rights staff , who facilitated the Workshop. Workshop participants are involved in many aspects of the problem of human trafficking. Human trafficking within and across borders in West African countries has increased at an alarming rate and the governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are gradually working to address the problem. The majority of the work to reach out to potential victims and to provide assistance and support to trafficked persons has come from the NGO community. NGOs in the region are operating on extremely limited budgets and most are unable to work collaboratively within their own countries or across borders, despite the transnational nature of the crime. They simply do not have the resources to do more than operate in their own communities. Additionally, little research has been undertaken in the region and so the problem is not well understood by the public, NGOs or government officials. |