Togo

Paragraph 457 

(1) We would reply by quoting article 341 of the Penal Code as contained in the Decree of 19 November 1947; accessories are liable to penalties under articles 59 and 60 of the Penal Code.  

“Article 341. Anyone who, without an order from the properly constituted authorities and in cases other than those where the apprehension of the accused persons is prescribed by law, arrests, detains or confines any person whatsoever shall be liable to a term of imprisonment with hard labour.  

“Anyone providing a place for such detention or confinement shall be liable to the same penalty.” 

(DD 19 November 1947) “Anyone who concludes an agreement for the purpose of depriving a third person of his liberty, either without payment or for payment, shall also be liable to the same penalty. Money, property or valuables receives for carrying out such an agreement shall be confiscated if the person regarding whom the agreement is concluded is under fifteen years of age.  

“Anyone who hands over or receives another person as a pledge, for any reason whatsoever, shall be liable to a term of imprisonment of from one month to two years and/or a fine of from 3,600 to 36,000 francs. The term of imprisonment may be increased to five years if the person handed over or received as a pledge is under fifteen years of age. The guilty person may also, in all cases, be deprived of the rights referred to in article 42 of the present Code for a period of not less than five and not more than ten years.” 

Article 13 

The State has the obligation to guarantee the physical and mental integrity, the life and the security of every living person in the national territory. 

No one may be arbitrarily deprived either of their liberty or of their life. 

Article 21 

The human person is sacred and inviolable. 

No one may be submitted to torture or to other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatments. 

Article 22 

Every Togolese citizen has the right to circulate freely and to establish themselves in the national territory in any place of their choice within the conditions defined by the law or local custom. 

No Togolese may be deprived of the right to enter Togo or to leave it. 

Any foreigner[,] in regular situation[,] on the Togolese territory and who conforms to the laws in force has the freedom to circulate and to choose their residence and the right to leave it freely. 

Article 36 

The State protects youth against any form of exploitation or of manipulation. 

Article 37 

The State recognizes to every citizen the right to work and strives to create the conditions for effective enjoyment of this right. 

It assures to each citizen the equality of opportunity concerning employment and guarantees to each worker a just and equitable remuneration. 

No one may be disadvantaged in their work for reason of their sex, of their origin, of their beliefs or of their opinions.

Constitution (PDF)

Article 149 

Constitutes a crime against humanity, in time of peace or in time of war, any of the following acts, knowingly committed in connection with a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population or population disarmed in case of internal conflict: 

3) enslavement; 

(5) imprisonment or other form of serious deprivation of physical liberty in violation fundamental provisions of international law; 

7) rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced sterilization and any another form of sexual violence of comparable gravity; 

Art. 317 

Trafficking in persons is the act of recruiting, transport, transfer, harbor or accommodate by the threat of recourse or recourse to force or other forms of restraint, by removal, fraud, deception, abuse of authority or a situation of vulnerability, or by the offer or acceptance of payments or benefits to obtain the consent of a person having authority over another for the purpose of exploitation. 

the operation includes: 

1) Sexual exploitation including the exploitation of prostitution of others; 

2) labor exploitation whose work or services forced, slavery or servitude; 

3) exploitation by forced or servile marriage; 

4) exploitation in armed conflict; 

5) exploitation by begging; 

6) the exploitation of the elements of the human body; 

7) exploitation by the carrying out of illicit activities by others including the production and trafficking of drugs. 

The consent of a victim of human trafficking to the proposed exploitation as defined in paragraphs 1 and 2 of this article, is irrelevant. 

Art. 318 

Anyone who facilitates or participates, by any medium, to the process of trafficking in persons as defined in the previous article, without necessarily being a party taking part in every act of this process, is punished a prison sentence of ten (10) to twenty (20) years and a fine of ten million (10,000,000) to fifty million 

(50,000,000) CFA francs. 

The deprivation of liberty, incurred by the author or an accomplice in one of the offenses provided for in this section, is reduced by half if, having notified the administrative authority or judicial, it allowed to stop the offense or to avoid that the offense does not result in death of man or infirmity to identify, where appropriate, other authors or accomplices. 

Art. 319 

The sentence is twenty (20) to thirty (30) years from criminal imprisonment and a fine of twenty million (20,000,000) to fifty million (50,000,000) CFA francs against any person who is the perpetrator or accomplice of the offense of trafficking in persons when it is committed in following circumstances: 

1) the offense is committed against a victim particularly vulnerable, in particular because of its minority, advanced age, pregnancy, illness, an infirmity or a physical or mental disability; 

2) the offense is committed against several victims 3) the offense resulted in the serious injury of the victim or a third; 

4) Infraction is committed as part of the activities of a grouping of criminals; 

(5) the victim of the offense was chosen by the author because of nationality, ethnicity, color skin, gender, religion or beliefs, or Political Views; 

(6) narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances, drugs or weapons are used for commission the offense; 

7) the victim has been sequestered or exposed in one place public or private;  

8) the acts of trafficking caused the child a disability physical, moral or. mental or other sequelae medically noted;  

9) the child has been subjected to the worst forms of work; 

(10) the purpose of the offense was to take one or more organs of the child; 

(11) the perpetrator or accomplice of the offense is in a state of recidivism; 

12) The victim or accomplice of the offense is a public official in the performance of his duties; 

13) the perpetrator or accomplice of the offense is the spouse or the concubine of the victim; 

14) the perpetrator or accomplice of the offense is in a position authority, responsibility or trust in relation to the victim; 

15) the victim has been placed in contact with the author or complicity of the facts through the use, for the dissemination of messages intended for an unspecified public, a electronic communication network. 

Is punished the same penalties anyone who organizes the commission of an offense of trafficking or gives instructions for this offense to be committed. 

Art. 320 

Recruitment, transportation, transfer, the accommodation or reception of a child for the purpose of exploitation are considered to be a trafficking of "persons, even if they do not use any of the means set out in paragraph 1- Article 318 of this section, and are punished by Penalties to previous article. 

Article 401 

Pimping is the fact, by any person in any way whatsoever: 

1) to help, assist or protect the prostitution of others; 

(2) to profit from the prostitution of others, to share their products or to receive subsidies from a person habitually engaged in prostitution; 

(3) to hire, train or divert a person for the purposes of prostitution or to exert pressure on her to prostitute herself or continue to do so. 

Article 402 

Any person guilty of pimping is punished by a penalty of five (05) to 

ten (10) years of criminal imprisonment and a fine of five million (5,000,000) to twenty million (20,000,000) CFA francs. 

It is also deprived of all or part of its civil, civic or professional rights. 

The court may order the closure of the institution where the offense was committed, application of Articles 120 et seq. of this Code relating to theclosure of an establishment, without prejudice to the penalties provided by Article 54 of this Code in the event of conviction of a legal person. 

All furniture used in committing the offense shall be seized and confiscated. 

The client of the person engaged in prostitution shall be punished under the same conditions as the pimp. 

Penal Code 2015 (PDF)

Article 4. 

Forced or compulsory labor is prohibited.  

The term forced or compulsory labor, any work or service required of a person under the menace of any penalty and for which said person has not offered himself voluntarily.  

However, the term "forced or compulsory labor" shall not apply to:  

1. any work or service required under the laws and regulations Service mandatory and having a purely militarymilitary; 
2. any work or service of general interest as part of the civicobligationscitizens, as defined by the laws and regulations; 
3. any work or service which is exacted from any personas a consequence ofconviction in a court judgment;  
4. any work or service exacted in cases of force majeure, in particular in the event of war or of a calamity or threatened calamity, such as fire, floods, violent epidemic animal diseases, invasion by animal, insect or vegetable pests, and in general, all circumstances endangering or likely to endanger the life or normal living conditions of the whole or part of the population. 

Requiring forced or compulsory labor is punishable by law. 

Article 151.  

Children over fifteen (15) years can make light work.  

Employers are required to submit a prior declaration the labor inspector and social legislation which has a period of eight (08) days notice of any disagreement.  

In all cases, are prohibited the worst forms of child labor.  

Are considered the worst forms of child labor:  

1. All forms of slavery or similar practices, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom, as well as work forced or compulsory, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; 
2. The use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, production of pornography or for pornographic performances; 
3. The use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, including the production and trafficking of drugs, such as defined in the relevant international conventions; 
4. Work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which theyiscarried out is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of the child. 

Labour Code 2006 (PDF)

Art. 3  

Child trafficking is a serious crime, which is defined as the 

process by which a child is recruited or kidnapped, transported, transferred, housed or received, inside or outside the national territory, by one or more people for exploitative purposes. 

Art. 4  

Exploitation refers to any activities to which the child is subjected and that do not have any economic, moral, mental or psychological interest for the latter, but which, on the other hand, provide economic, moral or psychological interest to the perpetrator of the trafficking or any other person, whether directly or indirectly. 

Art. 5  

Any person guilty of at least one of the acts listed in article 3 above is guilty of child trafficking. 

Art. 6  

Individuals are considered accomplices to the crime who have knowingly:  

- caused the act by providing information or instructions;  

- provided instruments, weapons, vehicles, or any other means useful for the preparation, consumption of the action, or to favor the impunity of its perpetrators;  

- aided or assisted the perpetrators of the crime in the acts that prepared, facilitated or consumed it 

Art. 10  

The perpetrators and accomplices of child trafficking are subject to imprisonment of two (02) to five (05) years and a fine of one million (1,000,000) to five million (5,000,000) CFA francs, or one of those two penalties, irrespective of the departure and destination locations of the children in question. 

Any attempted child trafficking is punishable by the same sentences.  

Art. 11  

Any person guilty of child trafficking committed under the circumstances below is punishable by a sentence of five (05) to ten (10) years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of five million (5,000,000) to ten million (10,000,000) CFA francs: 

- the victim is under the age of fifteen (15) years at the time of commission of the acts;  

- the act was committed by violence;  

- the perpetrator has used drugs to alter the will of the victim;  

- the perpetrator had a visible or hidden weapon;  

- the victim was sequestered or exposed in a public or private location;  

- the trafficking acts caused the child physical, moral or mental disability or any other medically recognized consequence; - the trafficking is the work of an organized group;  

- the child has been subjected to the worst forms of labor;  

in case of repeat occurrence.  

The judge may order the confiscation of all objects and materials used in the process of child trafficking. The penalties set out in article 10 above are doubled when the acts of child trafficking have led to the disappearance or death of the victim.  

Art. 12  

Any parent or guardian who knowingly facilitates trafficking of their child or a child over whom they have custody is punishable by a sentence of six (06) months to one (01) year of imprisonment.  

The prison sentence may be subject, in whole or in part, to a stay of proceedings for a period set by the judge, not to exceed three (03) years.  

In case of repeat offense, the penalty is doubled. 

Art. 13 

Anyone who requests, receives gifts, promises, benefits of any nature in order to facilitate child trafficking is subject to a penalty of one (01) to five (05) years of imprisonment and a fine of five hundred thousand (500,000) to one million (1,000,000) CFA francs, or one of those two penalties.  

The penalty is doubled if the perpetrator is an agent of the public administration having acted in the context of his or her duties. 

LAW RELATED TO CHILD TRAFFICKING 2005 (PDF)

Note: prohibits all forms of child trafficking and prescribes penalties of two to five years’ imprisonment, which are sufficiently stringent, but not commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape. 

Child Code 2007 (PDF)