Republic of Rwanda

Rwanda is a poor rural country with about 90% of the population engaged in (mainly subsistence) agriculture. It is the most densely populated country in Africa and is landlocked with few natural resources and minimal industry. Primary foreign exchange earners are coffee and tea. The 1994 genocide decimated Rwanda's fragile economic base, severely impoverished the population, particularly women, and eroded the country's ability to attract private and external investment. However, Rwanda has made substantial progress in stabilizing and rehabilitating its economy to pre-1994 levels, although poverty levels are higher now. GDP has rebounded and inflation has been curbed. Despite Rwanda's fertile ecosystem, food production often does not keep pace with population growth, requiring food imports.  [The World Factbook, U.S.C.I.A. 2009]

Human trafficking and Modern day slavery RWANDA   [Extracted from U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2009]

Rwanda is a source country for some women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. Rwandan girls are trafficked within the country for domestic servitude, as well as for commercial sexual exploitation; in a limited number of cases, this trafficking is facilitated by loosely organized prostitution networks. There were isolated reports of such sex trafficking networks operating in secondary schools and universities. In addition, older females reportedly offer vulnerable younger girls room and board, eventually pushing them into prostitution to pay for their keep. Rwandan children are also trafficked to Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya for agricultural labor or use in commercial sexual exploitation. Recruiters for the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), fraudulently promising high paying employment, defrauded Congolese men and boys from Rwanda-based refugee camps, as well as Rwandan adults and children from towns in western Rwanda, into forced labor and soldiering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In December 2008, the UN Group of Experts on the DRC released a report accusing Rwandan authorities of complicity in the fraudulent recruitment of soldiers, including children, by the CNDP and their movement across the border. Rwandan police or administrative officers reportedly were sometimes present during such recruitment