Zambia

People

A significant part of the Zambian population is vulnerable to modern slavery. Most cases of human trafficking in Zambia occur along the country’s borderlands and involve the trafficking of women and children from rural, often more depressed regions to urban areas or to Namibia or South Africa. Victims are abused in domestic servitude, sexual exploitation, forced begging or labour in various destinations. Human trafficking victims and offenders from Southern Asia and Eastern Asia have also been identified in Zambia. Chinese groups are known to traffic girls and women from China into Zambia, where they are exploited in massage parlours and brothels, while Chinese men are trafficked for forced labour in Chinese-owned companies operating in Zambia. Other human trafficking victims come from countries such as Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Syria. However, many foreign trafficking victims have transited through Zambia to destinations such as South Africa and Namibia as well as Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

With regard to human smuggling, Zambia is both a transit and destination country. Irregular migrants often use the services of smugglers to transit through Zambia en route to South Africa. Many of these migrants come from other African countries or from South Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. Smuggling routes between the Horn of Africa and Southern Africa often pass through Zambia.

Trade

The level of both firearms and ammunition trafficking into Zambia remains relatively limited and the level of arms trafficking into Zambia has decreased significantly in past decades. Nevertheless, ongoing regional conflicts, particularly in the DRC, have contributed to some level of arms trafficking into Zambia. The Zambian government also has a standing United Nations commitment to fight arms trafficking and the country has remained relatively stable.

Environment

Home to highly valued timber species such as rosewood, blackwood and Zambezi teak, illicit logging is a significant issue in Zambia. Despite attempts to ban the transport of endangered wood products, recent years have seen Zambia’s forest cover significantly reduced due to criminal activity. Criminal economies related to the exploitation of the country’s hardwood exist at each stage of the value chain, from extraction to milling, transport, sale and the laundering of criminal proceeds. Criminals involved in timber trafficking networks are increasingly of Asian origin, and Chinese business operatives play an important and active role in the market. However, several Zambian politicians and senior officials are also involved, enabling criminal networks to bypass existing national bans on harvest and export and use state-owned companies such as Zambia Forestry and Forest Industries Corporation Limited. Evidence indicates that associates of high-ranking officials are involved in this plunder.

Criminal fauna markets and wildlife trafficking are pervasive in Zambia too. Bushmeat trafficking, in particular, poses a significant threat to Zambian wildlife, as an informal and unregulated illicit bushmeat industry has emerged. Poachers also kill lions, leopards and cheetahs to sell their skins in Zambian markets and poach elephants to sell the ivory. As such, Zambia’s capital Lusaka is a known wildlife trafficking hub. Although pangolins are protected by Zambian law, pangolin poaching has also increased in Zambia in recent years. Additionally, a shared high-porosity border with ivory source countries such as Angola, DRC, Mozambique and Tanzania exacerbates the country’s vulnerability to wildlife trafficking. As such, Zambia is a transit country for the global illicit ivory trade.

Illicit copper mining is common in Zambia. Both Zambian and Chinese criminal networks are known to be involved in illicit copper and gold mining, particularly in the country’s eastern regions. Moreover, illicit fuel is reportedly smuggled into Zambia from neighbouring countries such as Namibia and Mozambique.

Drugs

Zambia has reportedly emerged as a significant waypoint for heroin moved overland from Tanzania and Mozambique to heroin markets in Southern Africa and West Africa. In addition, Zambia has seen an escalation in drug consumption in urban centres, particularly among younger segments of the population. Nevertheless, while evidence suggests an expanded market, data regarding heroin prevalence, consumption, transit and seizure patterns in Zambia remain limited. Zambia’s cocaine market has grown in the past 10 years, with rising rates of consumption and an expansion in the overland transport of cocaine from Latin America via West African and East African continental entry points. As with heroin, cocaine is increasingly available on the streets of major urban centres in Zambia. Cannabis cultivation in Zambia is largely driven by both national and regional cannabis consumption.

Cannabis cultivation is perceived among Southern African countries as a sustainable source of income, as well as a reliable source of income for the rural poor. Many rural Zambian women are known to cultivate and provide cannabis to sellers in urban markets. Moreover, cannabis cultivation for medical purposes is legal in the country with a permit issued by the Ministry of Health. Cannabis is also reportedly imported into Zambia from Malawi and Zimbabwe. Production, trafficking or consumption of synthetic drugs are not known to happen on a large scale in Zambia. However, evidence suggests that some quantity of methamphetamine and methaqualone is imported into or produced in Zambia. A street drug referred to as Mandrax, which contains methaqualone as the main ingredient, is reportedly becoming popular throughout the country. Mandrax is also imported to Zambia from India and is known to be trafficked overland from Tanzania and Mozambique to various African markets.

Cyber Crimes

*This indicator was first included in the 2023 iteration of the tool

Financial Crimes

*This indicator was first included in the 2023 iteration of the tool

Criminal Actors

Foreign actors play a significant role in organized criminal activity in Zambia. Human trafficking cases in recent years have involved criminals and victims from a range of countries across the African continent as well as from Southern Asia, South-eastern Asia and, in particular, China. South African criminal groups are also known to traffic victims through Zambia en route to South Africa. In addition to human trafficking, foreign actors are known to be responsible for a large part of the trafficking of ivory, and smuggling of contraband and fuel as well as drugs. Additionally, corruption among law enforcement officials runs rampant in Zambia. Criminal networks in Zambia also engage in strategic influence over state-embedded actors and businesspeople, resulting in a triangular crime framework with a highly complex and variable relationship in which the distances between various points on the triangle are constantly evolving. Thus, each sector at the triangle’s vortex is a complex combination of subsectors, with the state being perhaps the most amorphous actor.

Criminal networks are also heavily engaged in organized criminal activity in Zambia and remain active in a wide variety of criminal markets, including wildlife trafficking, flora crimes, human trafficking, non-renewable resource crimes, human smuggling and cybercrime. As mentioned, the latter tend to include state-embedded actors and legal businesses who cooperate and coordinate criminal activities. Moreover, many criminal groups operating in Zambia are linked to counterparts in other Southern African countries. Conversely, no evidence suggests a significant presence of mafia-style groups in Zambia.

Leadership and governance

The Zambian government lacks leadership in its anti-organized crime approach. Although the country is relatively peaceful and the government enjoys comparatively high levels of confidence among the population, the country suffers a governance deficit. Moreover, the Zambian government remains dependent upon external support for both economic sustenance and in its fight against organized crime. By global standards, Zambia suffers relatively high levels of corruption and both grand corruption and corruption in law enforcement continue to reduce the country’s resilience to organized crime. Zambia’s institutional and legal oversight mechanisms are not currently capable of effectively combating and preventing corruption, with anti-corruption institutions such as the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Auditor-General and the Ombudsman lacking resources and efficiency.

Zambia has ratified most major international treaties pertaining to organized crime. The country engages in international cooperation and has partnered with both international and regional organizations that combat transnational crime. Zambia has also engaged in bilateral judicial and law enforcement cooperation with many of its neighbours with a view to combating human trafficking. Furthermore, Zambia cooperates with a number of international donors on areas relevant to combating organized crime and corruption. The country houses multiple sites for the Monitoring of the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE). Zambia’s anti-organized crime legislative framework is relatively advanced compared to those of many other countries in the region. The legal framework addresses both organized crime in a general sense and specific markets such as human smuggling, human trafficking, arms trafficking, drug trafficking and the different environmental markets.

Criminal justice and security

Zambia’s judiciary is often subject to political pressure that limits its independence and due process for defendants is unequally guaranteed in practice. Moreover, in many parts of Zambia, statutory legal institutions have limited reach, making many citizens reliant on customary law institutions. Although the Zambian constitution allows the establishment of specialized courts, the country currently lacks a specialized judicial unit dedicated to the fight against organized crime. Instead, the Zambian judiciary remains reliant on international resources and support to prosecute cases of organized crime. Zambian law enforcement capacity in the fight against organized crime is reportedly expanding. Nevertheless, poor pay and funding gaps among law enforcement contribute to corruption, and law enforcement officials have been known to participate in or enable organized crime in return for payment.

Territorial integrity is weak, as the country shares long and difficult-to-monitor borders. Human and material resources necessary for ensuring efficient border control are also lacking, which creates additional vulnerabilities and opens up the country to illicit flows.

Economic and financial environment

Approximately half of Zambia’s population is engaged in some form of subsistence farming, but there are also some manufacturing and service industries. Overall, Zambia has made considerable development progress over the years, but, in recent years, falling growth rates and fluctuating copper prices have put a brake on the country’s continued economic expansion. Rapid demographic expansion and vulnerability to both price and environmental shocks continue to be sources of economic vulnerability. Zambia continues to have limited capacity to monitor illicit financial flows and for combating issues such as corporate tax evasion and money laundering. However, in 2019, Zambia was found to be compliant with 11 of the 40 Financial Action Task Force recommendations, and non-compliant in just one.

Civil society and social protection

Zambia has few mechanisms to support victims and victim protection efforts in the country are for the most part not up to international standards. Zambia lacks a witness protection programme, providing few incentives for witnesses to participate in trials or investigations. At the same time, however, the Zambian government has demonstrated increased efforts to combat human trafficking and law enforcement has become more active in applying preventive approaches to crime – often with the help of civil-society actors. However, these efforts may have been less impactful in urban spaces and have not necessarily targeted all at-risk groups equally. Civil society and NGOs in Zambia are active in areas such as preventing wildlife crime and rehabilitating drug users, however, in spite of their critical contributions, freedom of assembly and the right of NGOs to operate independently has come under pressure in recent years. The Zambian media operates with severe restrictions. Acts of intimidation, violence as well as threats of prosecution and closure have been commonplace in recent years.