New Law Might Put Modern Slave Traders in Jail for Life

A new anti-trafficking and smuggling law in Ethiopia will ensure that job agents who participate in the exploitation of migrants are to face fines and long – potentially even lifetime – jail sentences.

“So many crimes are committed (in connection with) overseas employment,” Belayhun Yirga, a director at the Federal Attorney General’s office, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “The new law … would enable law enforcement to investigate properly, to prosecute the criminals, to prevent and control the crimes.”

“This (law), if implemented well, could really minimize significantly the suffering of the Ethiopians sent abroad,” adds Daniel Melese, Ethiopa’s representative for the Freedom Fund, a private donor fund with a goal to end modern-day slavery.

The new law will put agents in jail for up to 12 years if they seize passports, withhold pay, operate without a license or illegally send migrants to nations. The draft law adds that if a worker “suffers harm to his human rights, life, body or psychological makeup”, the agent would risk life imprisonment.