• Increase efforts to investigate and prosecute suspected traffickers, including complicit officials, and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, which should involve significant prison terms.
• Increase efforts to proactively identify trafficking victims and systematically refer all victims to services.
• Expand partnerships with civil society organizations to ensure all identified trafficking victims receive services.
• Institutionalize training on victim identification SOPs for all front-line officials.
• Institute a formal witness assistance program for victims participating in judicial proceedings.
• Increase resources to monitor recruitment agencies and investigate forced labor.
• Establish a comprehensive data collection system for anti-trafficking efforts.
• Increase efforts to raise public awareness of trafficking, including child forced labor.
• Develop mechanisms for formalizing law enforcement collaboration with countries in Africa and the Middle East.
• Amend the trafficking law to prescribe penalties sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those for other grave crimes.
• Screen Cuban regime-affiliated medical workers for trafficking indicators and refer trafficking victims to appropriate services.
• Screen any Democratic People’s Republic of Korea workers for signs of trafficking and refer them to appropriate services, in a manner consistent with obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 2397.

The government slightly increased anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts.

Penal code articles 323 and 324 criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking and prescribed penalties of three to seven years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both for trafficking offenses involving an adult victim; and five to 10 years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both for those involving a child victim. In 2024, Guinea enacted an additional anti-trafficking law. Article 36 of the new law prescribed a penalty of two to five years’ imprisonment and a fine for human trafficking. Courts could choose to impose the new law’s penalty over those allowed in the penal code. The penalties for articles 323, 324, and 36 were sufficiently stringent; however, because article 323 and 324 allowed for a fine in lieu of imprisonment and article 36 reduced the range of imprisonment, neither law’s penalty for sex trafficking was commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape. Children’s code articles 893 and 894 prescribed penalties of five to 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 50 million-100 million Guinean francs ($5,810-$11,630) for child trafficking crimes; these penalties were commensurate with those prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape. Penal code article 343 separately criminalized forced begging and prescribed penalties of one to three years’ imprisonment and a fine; these penalties were not sufficiently stringent.

The government reported initiating 26 investigations – 19 for sex trafficking, six for forced labor, and one for an unspecified form of trafficking in 2024 – compared with an unknown number of investigations involving 160 suspects in 2023. The government reported initiating prosecutions of 36 suspects – 25 for sex trafficking, six for labor trafficking, and five for unspecified forms of trafficking – compared with 56 in 2023. Courts convicted 11 traffickers, compared with nine in 2023. The government did not provide sentencing data for convicted traffickers. The Special Service for the Protection of Vulnerable Persons and the Ministry of Security’s Office for the Protection of Gender, Children, and Morals were the lead government entities responsible for investigating trafficking; the General Secretary for Special Services, Counter-Narcotics, and Combating Organized Crime could investigate transnational trafficking. Designated magistrates prosecuted trafficking cases, but observers reported delays in prosecuting cases. A lack of resources hindered anti-trafficking police and courts’ ability to carry out their duties. Despite observers’ concerns of Guinean children exploited in forced labor in Quranic schools, the government has not prosecuted perpetrators of this form of forced child labor. The government collaborated with INTERPOL on transnational anti-trafficking law enforcement.

The government did not investigate, prosecute, or convict government employees complicit in human trafficking crimes; however, corruption and official complicity in trafficking crimes remained significant concerns, inhibiting law enforcement efforts. The lack of extradition agreements with African and Middle Eastern countries impeded prosecutions of traffickers from those countries. In partnership with an international organization, the government provided anti-trafficking training to gendarmerie, police, prosecutors, magistrates, labor inspectors, customs officers, arms control agency officials, and border agents.

The government maintained protection efforts.

The government reported identifying 762 trafficking victims – 632 of forced labor, 76 of sex trafficking, and 54 of unspecified forms of trafficking – and referring 36 victims to services; 101 victims of forced labor were boys exploited in forced begging. This compared with identifying 155 victims and 273 potential victims and referring 61 victims to services in 2023. The government reported NGOs and international organizations identified an additional 139 trafficking victims. The government reported collaborating with the Côte d’Ivoire government to repatriate victims. Lack of training, poor intragovernmental coordination, and inconsistent and sometimes unavailable government services continued to inhibit victim identification and assistance efforts.

The government had SOPs for victim identification and referral to services and it had a manual for referring vulnerable populations, including trafficking victims, seeking legal and judicial assistance. The government reported 7.95 billion Guinean francs ($8,600) for victim services, including trafficking victims. The government reported referring victims to NGOs, which offer food, shelter, and psychosocial assistance, although the government did not provide the NGOs funding or in-kind support. The government managed six centers offering food, shelter, and psycho-social support to victims of crime, including trafficking; the government did not report how many victims received assistance. NGOs operated three centers that could assist trafficking victims.

Victims could access services without cooperating with law enforcement. The government did not report if any trafficking victims participated in investigations and prosecutions in 2024. The government collaborated with NGOs to provide victims with legal assistance during legal proceedings. Victims could provide testimony via video or written statements. Victims could obtain restitution from and file civil suits against traffickers; the courts ordered traffickers to pay restitution to eight victims during the reporting period. The government could provide ad hoc temporary or permanent residency to victims from countries where they would face hardship or retribution if repatriated. Due to inadequate and inconsistent screening, the government did not take effective measures to prevent the inappropriate penalization of potential victims solely for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked.

The government maintained efforts to prevent trafficking.

The MoWP-led National Committee to Combat Trafficking in Persons and Similar Practices (CNLTPPA), which included representatives from the Justice, Security, Labor, Foreign Affairs, and Defense Ministries and NGOs, met three times. The government had a 2023-2025 NAP, whose implementation it funded with an undisclosed amount. Following a monthslong mining moratorium, the government introduced regulations to prevent child labor and trafficking in mining. The CNLTPPA organized awareness-raising activities. The government did not operate a hotline for potential trafficking victims; an NGO-operated hotline for women and children who are victims of abuse, including trafficking, received 10 calls regarding child labor in 2024. The government banned worker-paid recruitment fees, and it had policies to regulate foreign recruiters and hold them civilly and criminally liable for fraudulent recruitment; however, the government lacked the resources or the trained personnel to monitor and enforce these policies consistently, and it did not report referring potential cases for investigation. Unlike the previous year, the government did not report how many labor inspections it conducted or if any led to identifying trafficking victims. It did not train labor inspectors on trafficking indicators. The government reported inspectors lack resources to conduct inspections. The government did not report making efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex. The government did not report providing anti-trafficking training to its diplomats.

Trafficking affects all communities. This section summarizes government and civil society reporting on the nature and scope of trafficking over the past five years. Human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Guinea, and traffickers exploit Guinean victims abroad. Traffickers exploit children in forced labor in forestry, fishing, manufacturing, begging, street vending, shoe shining, construction, gold and diamond mining, herding, fishing, and agriculture, including on coffee, cashew, and cocoa plantations. Child sex trafficking is prevalent in Conakry and mining areas. Traffickers exploit adults in forced labor in agriculture. Traffickers increasingly use social media to recruit Guineans by offering false employment. Traffickers promise to care for low-income relatives’ children but instead exploit them in domestic servitude or forced begging.

Individuals vulnerable to sex and labor trafficking in Guinea include people in the informal labor sector, artisanal miners, people with albinism, people with disabilities, individuals in commercial sex, children who are homeless, children from the Dinguiraye-Kalenko corridor, children and women from rural areas, and children in child protection systems.

Traffickers exploit Sierra Leonians in Guinea in forced begging, domestic service, and sex trafficking. Migrants transiting Guinea are vulnerable to exploitation in forced labor, including domestic service, and Guineans seeking to reach Europe are vulnerable to trafficking in forced labor or sex trafficking. North Koreans in Guinea display indicators of forced labor and may work in exploitative conditions. Mining companies in Guinea owned in part by or affiliated with Chinese state-owned enterprises may exploit Chinese nationals in forced labor. The Cuban regime may have forced Cuban regime-affiliated medical professionals in Guinea to work.

Traffickers exploit Guinean women and girls in forced labor for domestic service and sex trafficking in West Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. Some traffickers fraudulently recruit children under the pretext of educational opportunities and instead exploit them in forced begging in Quranic schools in Senegal. Students are trafficked along routes through Mali and Guinea-Bissau. Previous reports alleged Guinean-Egyptian trafficking networks fraudulently recruited women for domestic work in Egypt and exploited them in commercial sex.