Madagascar Issues - 2023

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES 

Disputes - international

Madagascar-France: claims Bassas da India, Europa Island, Glorioso Islands, and Juan de Nova Island (all administered by France); the vegetated drying cays of Banc du Geyser, which were claimed by Madagascar in 1976, also fall within the EEZ claim of France

Madagascar-Comoros: the vegetated drying cays of Banc du Geyser, which were claimed by Madagascar in 1976, also fall within the EEZ claim of the Comoros

Trafficking in persons

tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List — Madagascar does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so; officials investigated slightly more trafficking crimes, cooperated with foreign governments on a trafficking investigation, and established a new mechanism to promote fair recruitment for potential migrants and raise awareness of trafficking indicators; however, the government did not demonstrate overall increasing efforts compared with the previous year to expand its anti-trafficking capacity; there were no reports of prosecutions or convictions of traffickers; the government did not hold complicit officials accountable nor investigate reports of officials facilitating child sex trafficking; officials identified the fewest number of trafficking victims since 2016 and only provided services to half of the victims; the government lacked standard operating procedures for identifying victims and referring them to care; efforts to address internal crimes, including domestic servitude, forced begging, and child sex trafficking, remained inadequate; the government failed to allocate adequate resources to agencies responsible for anti-trafficking efforts and lacked a national action plan; therefore, Madagascar was downgraded to Tier 2 Watch List (2022)

trafficking profile: human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Madagascar, as well as victims from Madagascar abroad; traffickers exploit Malagasy children in child sex trafficking and forced labor in domestic service in homes and businesses, mining, street vending, agriculture, textile factories, and fishing; most child sex trafficking occurs in tourist destinations, urban cities, vanilla-growing regions, and around mining sites with the involvement and encouragement of family members; tourist operators, hotels, taxi drivers, massage centers, and local adults involved in commercial sex also facilitate this crime; girls as young as 13 are exploited in child sex tourism, often openly in bars, nightclubs, massage parlors, hotels, and private homes; Malagasy men exploit the majority of child sex trafficking victims, while most foreign sex tourists are French or Italian nationals; government officials are reportedly complicit in providing false identification documents to traffickers that facilitate child sex trafficking in Madagascar and forced labor in domestic service by Malagasy women abroad; many Malagasy women are employed as domestic workers in China, Lebanon, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, where they are at risk of trafficking; traffickers acting as labor recruiters send Malagasy women to China with false identity cards, where they are exploited in forced labor in agriculture or domestic servitude; Malagasy men may be exploited in forced labor in the services and construction industries in the Middle East and domestic servitude in China; Chinese nationals working at China’s Belt and Road Initiative projects in Madagascar were vulnerable to forced labor (2022)

Illicit drugs

illicit producer of cannabis (cultivated and wild varieties) used mostly for domestic consumption; transshipment point for Southwest Asian heroin

NOTE: The information regarding Madagascar on this page is re-published from the 2023 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and other sources. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Madagascar 2023 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Madagascar 2023 should be addressed to the CIA or the source cited on each page.