PREVENTION
The Comoran government sustained minimal efforts to prevent trafficking. The government continued implementation of its national action plan, developed in May 2013. The monitoring group established to ensure implementation of the national action plan continued to meet weekly and, during the year, reported its activities at the weekly government Council of Ministries meeting. Representatives of the monitoring group included all relevant officials, international organizations, and NGOs. The anti-trafficking commission, established in July 2013 to oversee national efforts, met only once during the year, in July 2014, where members created a detailed road map with assigned duties, deadlines, and responsibilities for various government ministries in implementing the national action plan. In addition, the government continued implementation of its 2010-2015 national action plan for the elimination of the worst forms of child labor, which includes activities to address child trafficking, including forced labor in Koranic schools and domestic servitude. In November 2014, the Ministry of Interior collaborated with an international organization in hosting an event to raise awareness on child rights, including human trafficking, for an audience of 500-600 people. The government continued to fund a toll-free emergency line for reporting crimes to assist in the identification of victims of child abuse and exploitation. The government did not make efforts to reduce reported demand for commercial sex acts or forced labor.The Comoros is not a party to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.

CONGO, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE:
Tier 2 Watch List 
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a source, destination, and possibly a transit country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking.The majority of trafficking is internal and, while much of it is perpetrated by armed groups and rogue elements of government forces outside official control in the country’s unstable eastern provinces, incidents of trafficking likely occurred throughout all 11 provinces. Men and women working in unlicensed Congolese artisanal mines, many of whom began mining as children, are reported to be subjected to forced labor, including debt bondage, by mining bosses, other miners, family members, government officials, armed groups, and government forces. Many miners are forced to continue working to pay off constantly accumulating debts for cash advances, tools, food, and other provisions at undisclosed interest rates,

and some miners inherit the debt of deceased family members. Some Congolese women are forcibly prostituted in brothels or informal camps, including in markets, bars, and bistros in mining areas, by loosely organized networks, gangs, and brothel operators. Congolese women and girls are subjected to forced marriage following kidnapping or rape, or are sold by family members for a dowry or relief of a debt, after which they are highly vulnerable to domestic servitude or sex trafficking. Congolese women and children migrate to several countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, where some are exploited in sex trafficking, domestic servitude, or forced labor in agriculture and diamond mines. Some members of Batwa, or pygmy groups, are subjected to conditions of forced labor, most commonly in agriculture, but also in mining and domestic service in remote areas of the DRC. Some Angolans enter the DRC illegally to work in Bas-Congo province and are vulnerable to forced labor.
Children are engaged in forced and exploitative labor in small-scale agriculture, informal mining, and other informal sectors throughout the country. Children are subjected to forced and exploitative labor in the illegal mining of diamonds, copper, gold, cobalt, ore, and tin, as well as the smuggling of minerals. Children living on the streets who engage in vending, portering, and unloading trucks are vulnerable to forced labor, including being used for illicit drug transactions, and many of the girls are exploited in sex trafficking. Local observers suspect homeless children known as chegues, acting as beggars and thieves on the streets of Kinshasa, are controlled by a third party. Children in domestic service work long hours, and some are subjected to sexual abuse and exploitation—conditions indicative of forced labor. Girls in Bas-Congo province are coerced into prostitution by family members or transported to Angola for exploitation in the sex trade. Children from the Republic of the Congo may transit through the DRC en route to Angola or South Africa, where they are subjected to domestic servitude.
During the year several indigenous and foreign armed groups, such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), various local militias (Mai-Mai), Nyatura, Raia Mutomboki, Nduma Defence for Congo (NDC), Force for the Defense of Human Rights (FDDH), the Allied Democratic Forces, and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), continued to abduct and forcibly recruit Congolese men, women, and children as young as 7 years old to bolster their ranks and labor as guards, porters, cleaners and cooks, combatants, messengers, and spies; women and girls were forced to marry and/or serve as sex slaves for members of the armed groups. Some, including children, were also forced to commit crimes for their captors, such as looting, extortion, and stealing.
In part due to weak command and control structures, some elements of the Congolese national army (FARDC) and security forces deviated from government policy and pressed men and women, including internally displaced persons, to carry supplies, equipment, and looted goods from mining villages. They used threats and coercion to force men and children to mine for minerals, turn over their mineral production, or pay illegal “taxes.” In addition, it was reported that, contrary to government policy, some FARDC commanders provided financial and logistical support, including arms and ammunition, for armed groups, such as FDLR and Mai Mai militia, which routinely engaged in human trafficking.
The UN reported at least 1,030 children were separated from armed groups in 2014; no cases of child recruitment by the FARDC were identified during the reporting period—a significant

change from years of government use of child soldiers.The UN documented 241 cases of children who were both recruited and separated from armed groups in 2014, potentially including foreign children; 63 were from the FDLR, 32 from the Mai Mai Nyatura, 19 from the Raia Mutomboki, 16 from the LRA, and the remainder were from other Mai Mai groups. Most children were used in multiple capacities such as cook, porter, combatant, sex slave, or laborer.
Due to the ongoing conflict, more than 2.6 million people were displaced in the DRC, and displaced persons in Katanga, North Kivu, and South Kivu provinces remain particularly vulnerable to abduction, forced conscription, and sexual violence by armed groups and government forces. Poor infrastructure, limited anti- trafficking resources and expertise, and reports of corruption continued to impede official efforts to address trafficking.
The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however it is making significant efforts to do so. During the year, the government took significant steps to hold accountable officials complicit in trafficking through its conviction of FARDC and police officials for sex slavery. The government also arrested armed group commanders for child recruitment. In addition to continued efforts to implement the UN-backed action plan to end FARDC abuses against children, including child soldiering, and cooperate with international organizations to ensure screening, identification, and transfer of child soldiers separated from armed groups to social service organizations, all evidence appeared to indicate the government ceased its recruitment and use of child soldiers during the year. Despite these measures to address trafficking abuses perpetrated by officials, the government reported negligible efforts to address labor and sex trafficking crimes implicating or affecting the general public, by prosecuting traffickers, identifying victims, providing protection services, or referring them to NGO care.