RECOMMENDATIONS  FOR MALAWI:
Vigorously prosecute both sex and labor trafficking offenses under the anti-trafficking law; expand training and increase funding for judges, prosecutors, labor inspectors, and police to identify, investigate, and prosecute trafficking offenses; improve and expand the collection of national prosecution and protection data; increase awareness and monitoring of trafficking crimes, as well as efforts to identify traffickers and victims at border crossings and internal police checkpoints; develop formal guidelines to identify trafficking victims, especially among vulnerable populations, and to refer them to available services; increase the availability of shelters and protection services for victims, including through financial or material support to NGOs for expansion of direct service provision; sentence convicted traffickers to sufficiently stringent punishments, including the increased imposition of prison sentences; adopt a national strategy to combat trafficking that focuses on improving national-level coordination of anti-trafficking efforts across all districts; and continue to launch anti-trafficking public awareness  campaigns.

PROSECUTION
The Government of Malawi demonstrated progress in anti- trafficking law enforcement efforts. In February 2015, the government passed anti-trafficking legislation establishing a comprehensive legal framework to address trafficking in persons. Malawi’s anti-trafficking law prohibits all forms of trafficking and prescribes punishments of 14 years’ to life imprisonment, with no option of fines. Additionally, the Employment Act and Articles 135 through 147 and 257 through 269 of the penal code criminalize forced labor and forced prostitution, although the law does not define child sex trafficking in accordance with international law, which provides that the exploitation of the prostitution of children is trafficking regardless of whether force, fraud, or coercion is used. The penalties prescribed under these various statutes range from small fines to 14 years’ imprisonment; the maximum penalties are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with punishments prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape.The Child Care, Protection, and Justice Act of 2010 prohibits child trafficking and prescribes sufficiently stringent penalties of up to life imprisonment for convicted traffickers.
In 2014, the Malawi Police Service (MPS) reported anti-trafficking data covering only five of Malawi’s 34 district-level police stations; police provided information for seven districts in 2013. Poor record management and a lack of government direction contributed to shortcomings in adequately tracking investigation, prosecution, and conviction statistics nationwide. Police reported investigating 27 trafficking cases involving 47 suspects and 25 traffickers convicted, compared with 15 the previous reporting period. Information on prosecutions was unknown. Police from one of the reporting districts provided supplemental investigation, prosecution, and conviction data—some of which was included in the national report. Phalombe police reported 13 trafficking cases involving 31 traffickers. One case was dismissed, one was dropped, and the

remaining 11 cases were prosecuted and resulted in convictions under the Child Care, Protection and Justice Act. A majority of the convicted traffickers received prison sentences of 15-36 months, a significant increase from the previous reporting period in that district, when convictions resulted in fines and suspended sentences. In September 2014, media reported a 12-year-old girl from Zomba district was forced to work as a bartender and exploited in child prostitution, which led to the rescue of a similarly exploited 13-year-old girl. In February 2015, the owner of the establishment was convicted of child trafficking under the Child Care, Protection and Justice Act, yet was only ordered to pay 160,000 kwacha ($300) in fines. The government reported that the 2013 case of two men detained at the Karonga border crossing for transporting 25 girls and four boys, possibly for early marriage and forced labor, remained unresolved at the end of the reporting period.
The Ministry of Home Affairs, which includes the MPS and immigration officials, had primary responsibility for the prosecution of trafficking crimes and enforcement of trafficking laws. MPS prosecutors were responsible for prosecuting the vast majority of identified trafficking cases in Malawi. The MPS included anti- trafficking training in its curriculum for the Limbe Police Training School, Mtakata Police Training School, and Police College. During the reporting period, members of Malawi’s National Assembly and representatives of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Gender, Home Affairs and State House received training funded by foreign governments on trafficking issues and provisions of the anti-trafficking bill. The Malawi Human Rights Commission, an independent government agency, conducted outreach on draft anti-trafficking legislation to members of parliament. The Immigration Department continued to train an unspecified number of immigration officers on international anti-trafficking legal frameworks, how to identify human traffickers, and how to assist trafficking victims. The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government officials complicit in human trafficking offenses.

PROTECTION
The government increased the number of victims identified, but sustained inadequate efforts to protect victims. It relied largely on NGOs to identify victims and provide long-term care.The national government lacked comprehensive data on the number of victims it identified, referred, or assisted during the reporting period; however, case information provided by the MPS indicated the government identified at least 242 trafficking victims, a notable increase in comparison to the 119 victims identified the previous reporting period.Additional information on the profile of the 242 victims was unavailable.The government ran one social rehabilitation center in Lilongwe for orphans, child trafficking victims, and vulnerable children, providing counseling and rehabilitation services. The government reported referring 100 victims to the center in 2014, which had capacity for only 50 residents at one time due to a lack of resources. Reports from individuals acquainted with the facility described the center as chronically underfunded and unsuitable for trafficking victims, especially children—so dire that children exploited in child prostitution returned to the brothels from which they had been removed.The government continued to lack systematic procedures for the proactive identification of victims and their referral to care.
A 2011 NGO baseline survey of six districts reported 73 percent of victims did not receive any services after their rescue.The lack

of adequate and longer-term assistance left victims vulnerable to re-trafficking. More than 300 police stations at the sub-district level housed victim support units (VSUs) to respond to gender- based violence and trafficking crimes; however, the VSUs lacked capacity to respond adequately, providing only limited counseling and, in some districts, temporary shelter to victims. Some foreign victims likely avoided these centers due to fear of deportation.The government did not provide material or financial support for most NGO services, including the only dedicated shelter for trafficking victims in the country, which was operated by an international NGO.The government did not have a policy of providing foreign victims with temporary residency or other legal alternatives to their removal to their countries of origin; in practice, foreign victims faced deportation unless they challenged their immigration status in court.The new anti-trafficking law includes provisions for the protection of victims and witnesses during trial. There were no specific reports of trafficking victims penalized for crimes as a direct result of being subjected to trafficking; however, in recent years, abuse of sex trafficking victims by police has been reported. Law enforcement has treated persons in prostitution—including children—as criminals, rather than assessing them for indicators of trafficking.