The Central African Republic is a source, transit and destination country for men, women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and sexual exploitation. The majority of those trafficked are children subjected to sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, ambulant vending and forced labour. Moreover, civil unrest in the country has led rebels such as the anti-balaka to conscript children into armed forces in the northwestern and northeastern regions, as well as kidnap, rape and subject to conditions of modern slavery, many Muslim women in the country.
Alice was traveling in a shared taxi in April 2016 when four anti-balaka fighters armed with rifles, machetes, and knives stopped the car near mbaïki, in Lobaye province. The fighters slashed the taxi’s tires, shot the driver in the leg, and took Alice and five other women and girls to a nearby base, where they were held as sexual slaves for three days until she and the other girls were able to escape.
They said they are fighters of Rombhot. Because Rombhot was arrested, [the men said] if they see people on the road they will hurt them.
They said if I try to flee they were going to kill me. I was raped for two days. On the second day, two of them continued to rape me. The two did it one by one in the morning, and one by one in the evening.
[the women were also beaten and forced to wash clothes and cook until they escaped after three days]
As told to researchers for Human Rights Watch
