Vanaja Jasphine from Cameroon and Amina Oufroukhi from Morocco have been honored by U.S. Department of State for devoting their lives to the fight against human trafficking.
The two African women are among 8 individuals from around the world honored during the 2017 Trafficking in Person Launch Ceremony in Washington DC.
According to the report, Jasphine, a coordinator of the Kumbo Diocesan Commission for Justice and Peace in the Northwest Region of Cameroon provided rehabilitation for survivors. She also initiated a number of trafficking-related court proceedings, and offer legal assistance to victims, the report stated.
Oufroukhi, on her part, is a judge with the Moroccan Ministry of Justice’s Directorate of Criminal Affairs and Pardons. She helped establish special protection units in Moroccan courts for women and children and later drafted new legal procedures to extend these protections to all trafficking victims.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said everyone should play a role in ending human trafficking.
“As we honor these heroes, remember that everyone – everyone – has a role to play. Governments, NGOs, the private sector, survivors, and, most of all, the American people all must continue to work together to make human trafficking end in the 21st century,” said U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
According to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, severe forms of human trafficking is defined as “sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age; or
The act concludes that “The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.”