The cover of the US State Department’s 2026 Trafficking in Persons Report, which the US Embassy in Addis Ababa shared on X on October 9, 2026. (Image: US Embassy Addis Ababa via X)
The US State Department kept Ethiopia on Tier 2 in its 2026 Trafficking in Persons Report, and said credible sources reported the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) unlawfully recruited and used child soldiers.
The report, which the US Embassy in Addis Ababa shared on X on Friday, said the Gov’t “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so,” and that its efforts had increased overall compared with the year before. It also said the ENDF used children “in combat and support roles,” as did Fano forces, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA). The state-mandated Ethiopian Human Rights Commission looked into some cases, but the Gov’t did not report opening any criminal investigation or prosecution, and authorities “did not report meaningful efforts to demobilize or provide reintegration support” to children linked to armed groups or government security forces, the report said.
Ethiopia is also on this year’s list of governments that the State Department says recruit or use child soldiers under the US Child Soldiers Prevention Act, together with Afghanistan, Burma, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Russia, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen. Listed governments face limits on some US security assistance and military sales “absent a presidential waiver,” and the list covers the period from April 2025 to March 2026. Ethiopia was on last year’s list as well, and the same report shows that Washington then waived the limits in full for Ethiopia. The waiver memo cited cooperation with Ethiopia on counterterrorism operations in Somalia and “a surge in the transit of foreign terrorist fighters” at Bole Airport, and it said the ENDF had released children who were victims of forced conscription and that officials had acknowledged the problem and inspected detention facilities.
On law enforcement, the report said the Gov’t “decreased” its efforts. Authorities investigated 363 trafficking cases in 2025, down from 470 the year before, prosecuted 417 people compared with 697, and won 191 convictions compared with 340, which Capital newspaper calculated as a 44 percent fall. The report said officials, especially at regional and local levels, often confused human trafficking with migrant smuggling, and that a shortage of protection services kept victims from taking part in trials. Courts did not order any convicted trafficker to pay restitution to victims. The report also noted the conviction of a former deputy director general of the immigration and citizenship service, who received an eight-year sentence for unlawfully issuing Ethiopian passports to non-citizens, and an investigation into a network of 28 suspected traffickers who exploited 1,800 potential victims in Libya.
The Gov’t identified 164 trafficking victims in 2025, up from 105, the report said, and all 37 of those found in forced labor were children. Officials screened Ethiopians sent home from the Middle East and other African countries and found 142,679 potential victims, compared with 56,333 a year earlier, and the Gov’t and international agencies helped 142,752 Ethiopians return home. About 500,000 registered Ethiopian workers went abroad in 2025, the report said.
The State Department credited the new Overseas Employment Proclamation 1389/2025, which bars recruitment agencies from charging workers fees and requires them to deposit standby funds of 50 million to 250 million birr for victim assistance and repatriation. The federal Gov’t allocated 19,916,607 birr, about $128,440, on anti-trafficking work, although civil society organizations told the State Department that its financial and in-kind support for victims remained limited.
The report described Ethiopian women held in domestic servitude and abused across the Middle East, and girls exploited in Djibouti and Sudan. It said Ethiopian men answering online advertisements for IT jobs in Thailand were forced to work in online scam operations in Burma, Cambodia and Laos. It also cited media and NGO reports that Russian officials and illicit recruiters lured women aged 18 to 22 from Africa, including Ethiopia, into vocational programs and then placed them in military drone factories. Children in conflict areas “are vulnerable to unlawful recruitment or use by armed groups,” the report said, and it put the number of internally displaced people in Ethiopia at 2 million in 2025.
Habtamu (@HabtamuFekade), whose profile says he exposes abuses and press freedom threats, wrote on X that the report “highlights a persistent accountability gap: despite investigations into some cases by Ethiopia’s human rights commission, there were no reported criminal investigations or prosecutions tied to these allegations.” Tinsae Mulatu, who posts breaking news on Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, wrote that “the United States has documented the recruitment and use of child soldiers” by the ENDF. The International Geopolitical Operations Center (IGP) published an Arabic analysis by the researcher Sherin Helal, which opened: “When the protectors of the law turn into extortionists, and the state turns a blind eye to the recruitment of children, the main headline becomes ‘official cover for crime.'” The center wrote that the report revealed “an integrated system of corruption and institutional collusion.” Capital newspaper led its report with the 44 percent fall in convictions.
The report’s figures cover 2025. On Wednesday, Mereja reported that residents of Tigray told The Guardian that armed men serving the TPLF were rounding up boys as young as 15 for the front. The Ethiopian Gov’t had not commented on the State Department report by Friday morning.
Sources:
- US State Department (2026 Trafficking in Persons Report: Ethiopia)
- US State Department (2026 Trafficking in Persons Report, child soldier list and waivers)
- US Embassy Addis Ababa on X
- Capital
- Capital on X
- Ethiopian Business View
- Habtamu on X
- Tinsae Mulatu on X
- IGP on X (Arabic)
- Mereja (forced recruitment of boys)