ANNOUNCEMENTS
The study was conducted in North Shewa Zone of Kewot and Shewarobit districts of Amhara regional state, where human trafficking to Gulf country particularly women is widespread. The aim of the study was to investigate the factors contributing for trafficking in the context of migration, patterns, legal and institutional frameworks and its consequences on the victims. To explore the precise information primary data was collected from 357 returned women from Middle East countries, where most of them were trafficked. Focused Group Discussions (FGD) was conducted with the returned women. In addition, Key Informant Interviews with the victims, their parents and key stakeholders was conducted. Secondary data was collected from different sources such as policy and legislative, international legislative, ILO conventions, UN documents, articles, journals and reports relevance to the study. Descriptive statics was applied to analyze the victims socio-economic and demographic factors. In addition bivariate analysis using SPSS to see interlinked factors for the exploitation was applied. The study finding shows that 193 (54.1%) women have children which indicates they were migrating leaving their dependents. The study investigates nearly 70 percent of trafficked women have low level education. Another result in regard was (61.9%) of the women were born in rural places, where socio-economic condition is poor. The main decision to migrate illegally was seeking employment abroad (81.5%). Similarly, 81 percent of the returned women didn‟t have any asset prior to their migration and 52 percent of them are not currently employed. The women‟s migration process/decision was highly influenced brokers 55 percent. The majority of the women 62.7 percent hadn‟t received prior training about trafficking and migration related challenges. The majority of the study participants (60%) traveled by sea and land and their main destination country was Saudi Arabia. Around 54.9 percent of the study participants had faced one form of violence and exploitation. The main violence‟s the women faced were physical violence (including frequent detention and deportation), psychological violence and sexual abuse and mostly (75 percent) these exploitation occurred in the transit routes. The majority 52 returned women engaged in domestic work and their working hour per day was long. The institutions and the legal system have limited capacity to address human trafficking challenges. Thus, the finding of the study provokes to give attention by government, international agencies, civil societies, law enforcement bodies and the general public to address the problem of human trafficking particularly women.
Keywords: Human trafficking, patterns of illegal migration, factors of human trafficking , legal and institutional frameworks, consequences of trafficking.
