PROSECUTION
The government continued to make minimal law enforcement efforts during the reporting period. The 1886 penal code, as amended in February 2014, prohibits all forms of trafficking in persons and prescribes penalties of eight to 12 years’ imprisonment, which are both sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes. Trafficking is criminalized in Chapter III, Articles 19, 20, and 23. Article 19 criminalizes the act of delivering, enticing, accepting, transporting, housing, or keeping of persons for the purposes of sexual exploitation, forced labor, or trafficking of organs, including by force, fraud, or coercion. Article 19 also makes the enticement, transport, or housing of a child for such purposes by any means a trafficking offense; in keeping with international law, it does not require the use of fraud, force, or coercion to prove a trafficking case when a child is the victim. This provision would appear, however, to overlap with Article 22, pimping of minors, which provides a lower penalty of two to 10 years’ imprisonment for promoting, encouraging, or facilitating the exercise of the prostitution of children, with enhanced penalties for the use of force, threat, or fraud of five to 12 years’ imprisonment; these penalties are not commensurate with those proscribed for other serious crimes, such as rape. Slavery and servitude are separately criminalized in Article 18 with sentences of seven to 12 years’ imprisonment.The Law on the Protection and Integral Development of Children of August 2012 prohibits the exploitation of children under Article 7, and Article 33 prohibits the kidnapping, sale, trafficking, or prostitution of children; however, this law fails to define and prescribe penalties for these crimes, limiting its utility.
In 2014, the government reported on law enforcement efforts to address potential trafficking crimes, including its investigation of 18 potential trafficking cases, compared with two in the previous reporting period. Of these, the government initiated prosecution in five cases—the first anti-trafficking prosecutions initiated since 2011.These anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts appeared to focus on investigating potential child trafficking crimes involving transnational movement. The government did not report on progress to initiate prosecutions and convict suspected trafficking offenders from investigations during previous reporting periods, including the 2013 arrest of a Chinese national suspected of fraudulently recruiting children and young adults from Huila to Zaire province for construction work or the 2013 case involving 54 children intercepted en route from Huila to Namibe province, allegedly for work on tomato farms. It has never convicted a trafficking offender.The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government officials complicit in human trafficking offenses. Due to a culture of corruption, law enforcement efforts were stymied in many areas, including counter-trafficking.
Capacity building was prominent throughout the reporting period, as the government worked aggressively to train its officials on the 2014 anti-trafficking law. The government, at times in partnership with international organizations, trained over 400 officials during the year, compared with 308 in 2013. For example, in November 2014 it organized and funded a two-day seminar for 120 magistrates

on combating trafficking. In July 2014, the police, in partnership with INTERPOL, organized a workshop for 34 police officials on combating trafficking; additional sessions were held for provincial police throughout the country. In addition, national police academy trainings continued to include human trafficking provisions; 144 officials received this training in 2014.
The government maintained a labor agreement with the Government of China that requires Chinese companies to follow Angolan labor laws. During the year, it collaborated with the Kenyan government on the investigation of an alleged trafficking network involving 11 Kenyan victims and a Kenyan-based construction company in Luanda; officials investigated the Luanda-based owner of the construction company, who remained under investigation but was not in police custody at the end of the reporting period. However, Angolan authorities have not sought to criminally prosecute construction companies and employers, including Chinese-run operations, for alleged forced labor abuses.

PROTECTION
The government made minimal efforts to protect victims. The government identified and rescued 17 potential trafficking victims, compared with 21 potential trafficking victims identified the previous year. The National Institute of Children (INAC) assisted 15 child victims of sex and labor trafficking during the reporting period, providing food, shelter, education, and psychological assistance where available. In one case, the police removed a child forced to work on a farm and referred her to a child support center in Huila, which provided some legal and psychological assistance, as well as basic education to children. In a sex trafficking case, the Director of the Office Against Domestic Violence of the Department of Criminal Provincial Investigations in Cabinda provided shelter to a 14-year-old trafficking victim at her home. The child received psychological assistance and was able to go to school during her stay at the director’s home.The government did not proactively identify any adult trafficking victims in 2014, including among the large number of Chinese and foreign laborers in the Angolan construction sector, where exploitation is prevalent.
INAC oversaw child protection networks in all 18 provinces that offered health care, legal and social assistance, and family reunification for crime victims under the age of 18. The Ministry of Social Assistance and Reintegration (MINARS), the Ministry of Family and Women’s Promotion, and the Organization of Angolan Women operated 30 counseling centers, seven multipurpose shelters, and 52 children’s shelters that trafficking victims could access. Vulnerable women in safe houses receive legal counseling and some receive training; however, it was unclear whether any of these services were provided to trafficking victims during the reporting period. All government-run assistance centers are intended to provide some level of legal and psychological assistance to victims. The government coordinated with an international organization to provide an additional 11 victims with support, including shelter and repatriation to Kenya; however, the government did not provide funding or resources to support such efforts.
Law enforcement, immigration, and social services personnel generally did not make systematic efforts to identify victims and lacked a mechanism for screening individuals in prostitution or undocumented migrants. Neither documented nor undocumented foreign workers, including among the Chinese population, were screened for trafficking victimization and may have been arrested

and deported for unlawful acts committed as a result of having been subjected to trafficking, including immigration and employment violations. For example, if during labor inspection workers were found to be without work permits, authorities fined employers and arrested and deported the workers. On occasions when authorities identified trafficking victims among Chinese laborers, the Angolan government routinely repatriated them to China without providing care or ensuring proper treatment upon their arrival in China. Angolan law does not provide foreign trafficking victims with legal alternatives to their removal to a country where they may face hardship or retribution. The government did not actively encourage victims to participate in trafficking investigations during the reporting period.