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Plan Togo: Human Trafficking Dilemmas
Asbjorn Osland
Asbjorn Osland is a Professor of Business at San Jose State University.
I. Introduction
A. Case Synopsis: This case study highlights a strategic ethical dilemma facing the
director of Plan Togo, a non-governmental organization serving the community in varied ways
including anti-trafficking advocacy in Togo, Africa. It presents the extent and causes of slavery
and illegal human trafficking in the world. Efforts to eliminate trafficking by the United Nations,
the United States, and Plan International are summarized. The case concludes with a focus on
human trafficking in one nation, Togo, and some strategic problems faced by Plan Togo.
Stefanie Conrad, then Country Director of Plan International in Togo, considered the
dilemmas associated with human trafficking in West Africa and the role Plan Togo could play.
Plan Togo has to work closely with community leaders, children and others to prevent
trafficking. She and her staff have to build trusting relationships with the communities while at
the same time continually denouncing trafficking. She had two questions – one policy oriented
and the other specific to the lives of individuals:
1. Plan Togo, the local branch office of Plan International, had long supported a law against
child trafficking. When it became a reality the Togolese authorities were so aggressive in
their communication regarding enforcement of the law that trafficking became more
clandestine. The communities Plan Togo worked with became less willing and open to
admit that trafficking was still ongoing. Sensitization work at the community level
became more difficult, including access to key people such as community leaders. Young
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people likely to follow traffickers in hope for easy money or youth recruiting children
into trafficking became more clandestine. Should Plan Togo tone down its denunciation
of trafficking activity in the hopes of being better able to work closely with community
leaders, children and others to prevent trafficking?
2. Plan Togo agreed to support the Ministry of Social Affairs to reunite children intercepted
in trafficking with their families but encountered awkward situations from time to time;
Stefanie knew that not all cases were the same. Some children did not want to be reunited
with their families. Plan Togo could not create independent living situations for returned
victims. What should Stefanie and her staff do in the following situations?
A girl nearly 18-years old had been intercepted but she vehemently refused to
return to her family as she voluntarily left home and followed traffickers, trying to
escape a forced marriage.
A 13-year old intercepted girl refused to return to her family as she was forced
into trafficking by her stepmother, with the father’s consent.
B. Case Objectives:
To analyze how to better collaborate with local government in a complex problem like
trafficking
To recommend how Plan Togo could deal with its specific dilemmas of supporting the
government while maintaining the trust of the communities and also tailoring solutions to
the individuals’ situations
To better understand modern trafficking
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II. Classroom Management
In a 1-hour class period, the instructor could do the following:
A. The instructor has asked students to prepare brief summaries of the different kinds of
trafficking that exist. Each student or team presents on one of the five forms of
trafficking: sex trafficking, bonded labor, involuntary domestic servitude, forced child
labor, and child soldiers (4 minutes each=20 minutes). Each presentation should
include an estimation of the numbers of people involved, if possible, typical settings
or locations where it is found, and, if possible, examples of such trafficking.
B. Ask a student to facilitate the case by using the following structure: situation analysis,
problem definition, solution identification and implementation plan. The central idea
in case teaching is to teach problem solving and this is one method. The instructor sits
down and observes the process after having instructed the facilitator to pose questions
and listen for responses. Facilitators need to learn to be silent rather than fill voids
with their chatter. (20 minutes)
C. Instructor summarizes key issues. (10 minutes)
D. In the remaining ten minutes, the instructor leads discussion of the Facilitating
Questions and Answers listed at the end of the case. The instructor will have to
distribute the remaining time since answering and discussing all the questions may be
impossible.
Situation analysis: Plan Togo, a non-governmental organization (NGO), serves the
community in varied ways including anti-trafficking advocacy in Togo, Africa. The case presents
the extent and causes of slavery and illegal human trafficking in the world. Efforts to eliminate
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trafficking by the United Nations, the United States, and Plan International are summarized. The
case concludes with a focus on human trafficking in one nation, Togo, and some strategic
problems faced by Plan Togo.
Free the Slaves, a nonprofit organization devoted to ending slavery, estimates 27 million
people live in slavery worldwide, more than at any time in history. In its 2010 annual Trafficking
in Persons Report, the United States State Department estimated that 12.3 million adults and
children were victims of forced labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution around the world.
In the 1970s, Plan International, Plan Togo’s parent organization, changed its focus from
a charitable approach to development assistance with a focus on child welfare and launched its
first programs in Africa. Plan International has been working in Togo since 1988, currently
benefitting 26,320 Togolese children in 242 communities. Plan Togo, the national branch, also
participates in the collective fight against trafficking in terms of prevention and victim
protection, with criminal prosecution left to the state. Plan’s Strategic Framework for Africa
includes investing in human capital, encouraging learning, and collaborating with government
and other agencies in projects such as birth registration.
Problem analysis: Students identify the problems, which are explicitly stated in the case.
1. Should Plan Togo tone down its denunciation of trafficking activity in the hopes of being
better able to work closely with community leaders, children and others to prevent trafficking?
2. What should Stefanie and her staff do in the following situations?
• A girl nearly 18-years old had been intercepted but she vehemently refused to return to
her family as she voluntarily left home and followed traffickers, trying to escape a forced
marriage.
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• A 13-year old intercepted girl refused to return to her family as she was forced into
trafficking by her stepmother, with the father’s consent.
Students might focus on the discussion questions listed at the end of the case, which could be
another written assignment. However, the problem solving process is essential to learn so these
additional questions should not be answered in lieu of the two questions Stefanie faces.
Solutions:
1. Plan Togo needs to both work with the government and maintain the trust of the
community. Denunciation of trafficking is certainly appropriate in cases of serious abuse
but in these instances enforcement is required, which is a state function. The police are
alerted and they investigate and arrest perpetrators. Plan Togo needs to focus on
to setting. I took a few examples from the Kiva web site (www.kiva.org ) for Togo just so
they would be real cases:
This 34 year-old woman began retailing generic products in 2000. She gets her
supplies at Accra, so she makes a greater profit on her sales. She runs her business
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plus Amoxicillin and Analgin injection. She is married and the mother of two
children.
This 49 year old man is very dynamic. He is security agent with a company
Though these two are older than normal trafficked people, the examples of small retail
and motorbike taxi could apply to young adults as well.
Young people can be trained in trades appropriate to the environment and also provided
with micro-loans to develop small businesses that flow from the training. For example, some
On the program level the birth registration effort is critical so that children and youth
have ID documents and don’t vanish undetected into trafficking networks. Appropriate
Plan Togo’s website didn’t focus on vocational training or microfinance so it could be
that those resources need to be developed or villagers would have to look to other agencies.
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According to the website, it focuses on immunization for children under five years of age and
… develop their capacity to advocate, to take action for child protection and
participate at family, community and national levels. With Plan’s support,
Togolese children host live radio programmes on 2 community radio stations on a
(http://plan-international.org/where-we-work/africa/togo/what-we-do ).
2. Victim protection is both a state function and one for which the state needs NGO support.
Plan Togo needs to embrace victims that return and route them into programs that serve
their needs. It also needs to respect their legitimate autonomy as decision makers and not
simply place them with their biological abusive families, in the event the family was part
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home but are not yet ready to work. Foster care or group homes may not be common
practice in the community but Plan Togo has to work with the government to avoid
sending children back to abusive families.
If Plan Togo shows people that it is working aggressively, mindfully and effectively at the
Implementation analysis: All of these activities could entail collaboration with other NGOs
and governmental offices that provide training, education support, extension services,
micro-finance, support for cooperatives and other socio-economic development assistance
E. Application Questions and Answers
1. Collaborating with African governments is not easy. The authorities often see
foreign assistance providers as sources of vast resources. Stealing from foreigners is
not the same as taking from a relative, in the eyes of many officials, just like
Americans will steal from employers or cheat the IRS but not steal from family.
Governmental authorities can also be very slow and unresponsive. Suppose that you
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are the NGO representative – how can you gain the trust and cooperation of a
corrupt1 government official in order to be effective?
Expatriates and the organizations they represent vary greatly in their tolerance of abuse and
ways of collaborating. Large official international organizations sometimes fund projects where
corruption is tolerated. Though smaller NGOs have to collaborate to gain permission to operate
I worked with developing country governments as an NGO manager for Plan International
for ten years prior to getting my doctorate. When asked to give large amounts to the government
I simply stated that our donors trusted us to spend their money and we had to pass the annual
audit or I would be fired; I tried to personalize the consequences. On the other hand when strange
1 Corruption here means both the auditing definition of material theft and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
definition where facilitation payments are okay but bribery is not. Material means important. Facilitation payments
are those made to get something normally done faster than if actively delayed by the corrupt official and such
payments are not illegal under American law. Bribery is payment made to get something done that would not
otherwise be done. The distinction can be torturous and may require a lawyer, as I found out while listening to a
group of American CPAs question the tax lawyer of the large multinational I worked for in Panama. While I worked
for them I literally had to sign a statement every three months that I hadn’t seen, heard or done anything illegal,
which was part of the enforcement imposed by the U.S. government as a reflection of the company’s infamous
tendency to cut corners through bribery.
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repairs and he looked to the sky and said, “God is great.” The vehicle was never repaired but I
overlooked the theft since he thought the money was a divine intervention to resolve his crisis.
Another time the same individual went to Dakar with our Senegalese controller, 250
kilometers south from our offices in northern Senegal to purchase program materials and
supplies. I noted that the prices paid by Saidou were higher than what I had customarily paid and
To get Saidou’s boss to visit with one of our board members during a short visit in Dakar I
In another instance I was threatened by the work inspector with an audit of our office on a
given day. He said that he preferred to go to Dakar that day but he was short gasoline. I gave him
coupons for gasoline and avoided the audit. He could have simply requested the gasoline straight
Though it didn’t involve an official, the following example of local control proved creative. I
had advanced a carpenter too much money to buy a saw to make desks and he wasn’t delivering
them on schedule. He was enjoying himself with the advance. I couldn’t report him to the
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What I found was I got along well with officials in relatively stable countries if I did the
following:
I couldn’t show self righteous indignation when small abnormalities occurred.
I used local officials seconded to Plan and community leaders to guide programming. I
didn’t dictate what we did but I vigorously controlled how we implemented projects in
terms of resource allocation.
I used relationships to get things done rather than getting proposals signed. One had to
get the initial agreement signed but after that relationships were central to day-to-day
operations. Trying to get written approval from local officials for all projects would have
paralyzed operations. I of course had written approval from Plan, which was very flexible
in reallocating funds to things that were working well.
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Sometimes chaos, corruption, war and the like preclude collaboration and one simply has to
await a better government. Plan’s first attempt in Africa in 1974 resulted in my colleague being
jailed in Ethiopia for several months; he had taken photographs and the authorities in Lalibela
accused him incorrectly of spying for the CIA. When I visited Liberia to sign an agreement for
The instructor could ask students to call local NGO headquarters to see if any of their
2. What examples have you observed that did not as yet constitute trafficking but
could conceivably become problematic? What would exacerbate the situation so that
it passed from legal exploitation to trafficking? For example, exotic dancing is
something students will sometimes do to earn money yet criminal elements in such
clubs also can facilitate the transition of exotic dancers to prostitution through drug
dependency.
First let’s briefly discuss exotic dancing. Many dancers see themselves as entertainers rather than
sex workers. Sexual entertainment in terms of dancing and massage has become common in
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American cities even where street walkers are never seen. A visit to Craig’s List Adult Services
or perusal of the last few pages of free local weekly papers in most cities show a host of
situations where adults offer services that could be construed as sexual. Some libertarians view
Agustin, Laura M. (2005). The Cultural Study of Commercial Sex. Sexualities, 8: 5:
618-631.
Barton, Bernadette& Hardesty, Constance L. (Spring 2010). Spirituality and Stripping:
Exotic Dancers Narrate the Body Ekstasis. Symbolic Interaction, 33 (2): 280-296.
Bernard, C. (2003). Exotic Dancers: Gender Differences in Societal Reaction, Subcultural
Ties, and Conventional Support. The Journal of criminal justice and popular culture, 10 (1):
1-11.
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Borda, Jennifer L. (April 2009). Negotiating Feminist Politics in the Third Wave: Labor
Struggle and Solidarity in Live Nude Girls Unite! Communication Quarterly, 57 (2): 117-135.
Philaretou, Andreas G. (January 2006). Female Exotic Dancers: Intrapersonal and
Interpersonal Perspectives. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 13 (1): 41-52.
Wesley, Jennifer K. (2006). Negotiating Myself The Impact of Studying Female Exotic
Dancers on a Feminist Researcher. Qualitative inquiry, 12 (1):146 -162.
Prostitution can also be perceived as legal employment in some contexts but it readily
crosses the line to trafficking from poor countries to wealthy. Students can search the Internet for
sites that discuss prostitution, countries of origin, trafficking and so forth. Sites disappear but the
following were ones located on July 9, 2010:
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/netherl.htm
http://gvnet.com/childprostitution/Moldova.htm
http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/archive/2010/01/most-eu-sex-workers-from
-romania
http://qorreo.com/2010/04/the-industrialisation-of-prostitution/856
Using Academic Search Premier, a database, on July 9, 2010, I found 136 refereed
articles on Sex tourism. Students can readily find articles discussing various contexts. Wealthy
customers seek poor prostitutes in developing countries while on holiday, which is exploitive.
This is not necessarily trafficking but can readily degenerate into forced migrations and further
abuse.
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Students should be asked to think of personally observed examples of trafficking. One
domestic example I observed of forced labor was in a U.S. institution for the mentally disabled,
then referred to as the retarded. It was the early 70s and a movement was ongoing to get people
out of the institution into the community in group homes or appropriate facilities. There were
older men that had been in the facility since childhood; during the Depression they were
reportedly left there by their indigent parents. These men functioned well enough to be trusted
workers within the institution, which relied on them for labor for decades without payment. It
was my job as a graduate student in social work to help them make the transition into the
community.
Trafficking and slavery are horrible terms and one wonders how people can be so cruel.
Yet, some accepted cultural practices can become harsh and exploitive. I observed situations
when I lived abroad that could have been normal but they could also cross the line to exploitation
and even trafficking:
I lived next to a Koranic school where students in Senegal grew under the tutelage of
their marabou to become seemingly spiritually centered adults. Part of the teaching of
Mauritanian merchants in northern Senegal had strings of small boutiques where distant
relatives would live in squalor and tend to the store 24/7. The merchants periodically
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Women crossing the Mauritanian border with Senegal were not even required to show ID
at times, they were chattel.
In Burkina Faso it was common for would be civil servants to spend long periods as
Children would be sent from family member to family member as cheap labor. Again,
I also lived in Latin America for years and it was common for domestic servants to stay
with families for decades, after arrival as children. They were technically free to leave but
Farm and factory workers also had limited opportunities in some Latin American
countries. They could accept a meager existence or risk bodily harm or execution if they
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3. On vacations abroad one can readily observe young prostitutes working in red light
district bars. One sometimes doesn’t know their ages or if they are enslaved by a
pimp. What would you do if, in the company of drunken friends, and one of them
decided to enlist the services of such a girl?
The instructor should ask students how they would handle this. Men should be encouraged to
listen to the views of their female classmates. Some young men see it as a commercial exchange
4. One need not go far in the U.S. to observe harsh labor conditions. Farm workers die
from heat stroke and agricultural accidents. Factory workers are exposed to toxic
substances, repetitive motion injuries in meat packing plants, and perilous
conditions. How can society ensure that labor abuses don’t occur with vulnerable
people, such as undocumented workers fearful of informing on the abusers to the
authorities?
The instructor can refer students to OSHA and its state equivalent offices to view the services,
safety training and audits that help protect workers. Students could also contact one of a host of
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Students could also explore the “restavec” problem in Haiti and in the U.S. where
G. What did you learn from this case?
Students should be asked to reflect on the case and point out what was significant to
them. Finding out about the horrors of other countries might be motivating and inspirational to
F. Other References and Resources (Recommend Internet Sites or Books/Articles)
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Students can google human trafficking and investigate the various resources that are
available. They can also go to google scholar and look for academic articles on human
trafficking.
http://www.childtrafficking.com/ offers a searchable digital library. Its most downloaded
articles follow, with the citations quoted in their entirety from the website:
Dessy, S.E., Pallage, S. (2003). The Economics of Child Trafficking. 16 p. Universities of
http://www.ecn.ulaval.ca/w3/professeurs/Dessy-Pallage3.pdf
International Organization for Migration (IOM). (2004). Revisiting the Human
Trafficking Paradigm: The Bangladesh Experience. Part I: Trafficking of Adults. 88 p. "Human
trafficking should be seen against a wide range of trafficking acts and outcomes that involve
http://www.iom.int//DOCUMENTS/PUBLICATION/EN/Full_BangladeshTrafficking_R
pt.pdf
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Asia Regional Cooperation to Prevent People Trafficking (ARCPPT). (2004). Gender,
Human Trafficking, and the Criminal Justice System. 78 p. This study represents the result of
http://www.humantrafficking.org/countries/eap/cambodia/resources/pubs/gender_report_ca
mbodia.pdf
Koen, K. (undated). Children on the edge: Strategies towards an integrated approach to
http://www.genderstats.org.za/documents/ChildSexExploit.doc
Bhabha, J. (undated). Gendered Chattels: Imported Child Labour and The Response to
Child Trafficking. 16 p. “Trafficked girls are more likely to be considered victims who need
http://www.childtrafficking.com
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Other web sites follow:
http://www.humantrafficking.org/
http://www.endhumantrafficking.org/
http://www.polarisproject.org/
http://www.humantraffickingsearch.net/
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