ANALYSIS OF CROSS-BORDER COOPERATION BETWEEN SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY (SADC) MEMBER COUNTRIES ON THE MANAGEMENT OF TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN FROM 2019 - 2022

Abstract

The Southern African region is a part of Africa which is a source, transit and destination for human trafficking, especially women and children. To prevent this, throughout 2018 - now, SADC member countries have ratified the legal framework and national, regional and international action plans in the framework of regional cooperation. Therefore, this research focuses on looking at the effectiveness of the collaboration that has been carried out by SADC member countries in the form of various bilateral and trilateral collaborations to overcome the problem of human trafficking, especially in women and children. Apart from that, we see the importance of cross-border cooperation in handling human trafficking cases, especially in the SADC region. Through this research, it is known that although there has been a lot of collaboration, such as forming and ratifying legal frameworks. However, unfortunately there is no legal framework and action plan regarding extraordinary forms of cross-border human trafficking. In addition, the legal framework and action plans only cover cases of migrants or smuggling, and do not even cover cases of women and children. On the other hand, implementation is still very bad with problems, SADC countries only focus on their own action plans. Causing low levels of regional cooperation and integration, which are important factors in handling cases of human trafficking in women and children. The findings of this thesis explore SADC's ineffective efforts during 2019-2022, particularly in the SADC region.