Human Trafficking in Ethiopia: Cases from Dodola Woreda

Methodology of the study

Description of the Study Area and population.

Dodola woreda is one of the 18 woreda's of west Arsi zone, which is, found in the central part of Oromia in Ethiopia. It has a total area of approximately 143246 heckter with altitude ranging from 2370 to 3500 above sea level, which is almost within the range of 95% dega and 5% waina dega climate zone. The annual mean temperature oscillate between 13oc-26oc, while the average annual rainfall is between 800-1200mm. It is bordered to the south by Adaba woreda, to the northeast by Kofale, to the north -west by Kokosa and to the West by Nansabo woreda. Currently this woreda has 23 Rular kebeles and has 4 rural towns and on the basis of 2007, CSA, the woreda has a total population of 186, 907, of which, 92,471 were male and the left 94,436 shows female sections. Out of this total population, 30,250 indicate the urban residents or inhabitants of Dodola district. Here, majorities of the inhabitants (80.65%) were Muslim where by 17.89% followed by 1.3% indicate the followers of Ethiopian Orthotics Christianity and protestant respectively. Among the 23 woredas of west Arsi zone, it is one of the best woreda being characterized by having comfortable weather condition for life in general and fertile land for farm. Here, the study populations are the entire group of people to which a researcher intends the results of a study to apply (Aron & Coups, 2008).Therefore, the subjects of this study was victims of human trafficking, families' of victims, policy officer, labour and social affair office, youth and sport office of dodola woreda and brokers.

The study was conducted in the Dodola district, West Arsi, Oromia region in Ethiopia. The reason for selecting Dodola as my study area is the following factors. As, data obtained from labour and social affair office from 2014-2018 there were the highest number of migration among West Arsi zone, Dodola were the second level in returns. Second, it is because of the researcher's personal experience and familiarity with the language and culture of the region. The study was select focus on Edo, and Heraro town, as well as Barisa, and chare-kachama kebales because of the occurrence of a higher level of trafficking in persons than in the other kebales of the woredas. For instance, from the 2014 deportees from Saudi Arabia the highest numbers, and Kowet, Berut were small cases of trafficking victims were found respectively (Dodola woreda office of Labour and Social Affairs, 2018).

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Figure 5. Map of study area description

Map of Dodola woreda Map of West Arsi zone

Source: (Dodola woreda administrative office, 2018)

Research methodology

In chapter two of this proposal, the relation between existing body of knowledge and important issues involved in assessing the causes and effects of human trafficking. This chapter explained the methodology that used in this research and different techniques that utilized while collecting data including how the primary and secondary data collected. The study was employed both qualitative and quantitative research approach.

Design and methodology of the thesis.

Research Design

The method of this research was used both descriptive and explanatory research designs. The reason to choose this research design is that, it was enables to describe and explain the intended objective of this study. In order to address these stated objectives the researcher was use both quantitative and qualitative (mixed) research approaches. However, the qualitative data type given more attention since, it is important to study research participants’ in-depth/details. As to Marshall and Ross man (1995), the strength of qualitative methodology lies in its use in descriptive research since it often employed for deeply rooted studies that attempt to interpret social reality. The issues related to human trafficking are one aspect of human problem; qualitative analysis believed to provide sufficient understanding of the subject (Roger, 2003).

Methodology of the thesis.

This method allows the researcher to investigate initial participant responses by using open-ended questions ask why or how with full freedom and flexibility. The reason why such method is used is to enable informants express their ideas in their own words and get the full picture of the problem. Hence, the researcher was primarily use the statements of the trafficking of young aged returnees to establish a pattern of the experiences, treatments and problems they face throughout their passage and in destination. Quantitative and qualitative research methods combined as complementary rather than as rival camps in data collection, analysis and interpretation. The quantitative and qualitative methods complement each other when used in combination and allow for more complete to analysis. Hence, methodological triangulation was employed in this study to understand the whole process of causes and its effects of human trafficking. The qualitative method was employ in investigation of the problem and the researcher used both first hand and second hand sources of data collection (Green et.al, 1989).

While designing mixed methods of study, the following issues need consideration: priority, implementation, and integration (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007). This study was use sequential explanatory mixed methods design, consisting of two distinct phases. In the first phase, the quantitative (numeric) those statistical data was collected through questionnaires. In the second phase, a qualitative data was gathering through structured and semi-structured interviews, focus group discussion, and documents studies. The qualitative data analysis was refine and explained results by exploring participants’ views more in depth.

According to Lofland (1995), sequential mixed methods of data collection strategies involve collecting data in an interactive process whereby the data collected in one phase contribute to the data collected in the next. Thus, in this study the informants was quantitatively, to obtain the categories of the respondents depend on those returnee from abroad by the act of human trafficking was identified and the frequency of the values to determine the level of the causes. while qualitatively, get to know them personally what have experienced in their life by using questions such as how, and why is happening, what are challenges, and what are key driver? To answer the how, what and the why questions, one should focus on people and settings, looking for the meanings that existed in, emerged from, and were consequential for, those settings. Because of these, the sequential mixed research method selected by the researcher to determine the frequency of the factors, compared the variables, focus on underlying reasons, opinions, feeling, perception, on problems of the human trafficking.

Sample size and sampling technique

Purposive sampling is used to select participants or specific sites for the study intentionally by the researcher (Kothari 2004:59 and Singh 2006:91). Hence, the researcher in relation to the specified criteria that were assumed important for a particular research question (Kothari 2004:59) purposefully selected participants of this study. Police officers, victims of trafficking and their families, officials from the labour and social affairs offices and representatives of the youth and sport affairs, and districts court judges’ were selected by purposive sampling technique.

Snowball sampling, which is part of purposive sampling, was used to get the target group of trafficking victims. The main strategy of snowball sampling involves identifying people with relevant attributes and asking them to pinpoint other people who have similar characteristics or challenges (Bruce 2001:33).

By purposive sampling in informants were chosen for an interview. During the selection of participants for an interview, the researcher was look into consideration the respondents’ age, expertise, social and educational status, and gender.

The total numbers of respondents for this research were 50. Out of the 50 respondents, 33 were males and, 17 were females. Among this 32 were rights holders who were victims of trafficking and the families of victims. From this, 25 of the participants was from the victims of trafficking groups; out of which 9 was females, and 16 was males, who came back from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The families' of victims was 7; from this, 5 males and, 2 females. The majority of the sampling was from the rights holder at the age of 18 up to 28. The remaining 18 samples were from the relevant of duty bearers. 6 respondents out of the 18 duty bearers was females; and 12 was males. Among these 7 Police officers, from these 5 males and 2 female, and 6 officials from the labour and social affairs offices 4 male and 2 female; and, 2 from youth and sport office and both were 2 females; and, 3 from districts court’s judges 2 male, and 1 female.

Data gathering tools

The type of data that was be used for this study is quantitative and qualitative. Because through these techniques the numerical value of the sample and clear description and explanation of the past and current factors have been discussed. The first hand and second hand source of data was available in this study. The primary data were gathered via questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussion while the secondary data was collected through published and unpublished relevant documents, materials, reports of conference, and researches result. Data collection tool for this study treated as a matter of design that was boost the construction of both internal and external validity as well as reliability of the study that were started by planning for data collection, distribution of questionnaires and conducting of interviews. The data gathering tools employed in this study are as follow:

Questionnaires

Taylor (1998:55) explained, “Questionnaires are preferred in the study because they give respondents complete freedom of response. Both open ended and close ended questionnaire were applied to collect necessary data. The questionnaires were mainly used because it is appropriate to obtain varieties of options from a large population with in short time. To make respondents understand the questionnaire, it was prepared in English and translated in to Afan Oromo. The questionnaires were designed for Police officers, and representatives of the youth and sport offices, and districts court judges’ to get information on the nature, scale, socio-economic aspects of human trafficking and as well as its constraints.

Interview

The most common sources of data collection in qualitative research are interviews, and review of documents (Holt-Jenson, 1999:11). This study was conducted via person-to-person interview format during data collection. Interviews highly structured style were conduct, for in whom officials from the labour and social affair and the close-ended questionnaire were used primarily to gather socio- demographic information. For the most part, however, interviews are more open- ended and less structured. Frequently, the interviewers asked the same questions of the same categories of participants (For example victim of trafficking, labour and social affair officials) but the order of the questions, the exact wording, and the type of follow-up questions were varied considerably.

The researcher were used both structure and unstructured interview in which carefully worded questionnaire were administered in structured; however, the interviewer did not follow rigid form in case of unstructured. This was encouraged to capturing of respondents’ perceptions in their own words and this is desirable strategy in qualitative data collection. This allows the researcher to identify the causes and effects of human trafficking from the experience of respondent’s perspective. The interviewers was seek to be encouraged, free and open responses, and there is a tradeoff between comprehensive coverage of topics and in depth exploration of a more limited set of question. The Interviewers has also trained to deviate only minimally from the question wording to ensure uniformity of interview. Interviews were conducted with officials from the labour and social affairs offices and to get information on policy issues, challenges they faced in applying anti human trafficking, its goal is to elicit rich, detailed material that can be used in analysis.

Focus Group Discussion (FGD)

FGD was conducted with selected local community of returnees’ family members. Totally, there were seven FGDs of eight discussants. The analysis was base on the transcripts of taped interviews in Afan Oromo and converting into English. Then it was be analyzed by the researcher thematically.

Document analysis

As Lincoln and Guba (1985: 16) defined a document as 'any written or recorded material' not prepared for the purposes of the evaluation or at the request of the inquirer. This technique is preferred because of its ability to provide supplementary information and flexibility, which help in producing descriptive information. For the purpose of this study, Public records such as census and vital statistics reports were observed. Both published and unpublished literatures on causes and effects of human trafficking as well as internet sources were consulted. Through this study the researcher was attempts to review of the relevant written documents about subject (causes and effects of human trafficking) the written documents was consisted of Dodola district labour and social affair recorded documents, publication, reports presented at conferences, internet, and government documents.

Methods of data analysis

Mixed data analysis is a complex process that involves moving back and forth between inductive and deductive reasoning (Merriam, 1988). Data collected by qualitative methods are usually voluminous and the analysis does not involve using a set of formula like it does with statistical analysis used in quantitative methods. Therefore, in this study, the researcher was employed mixed data analysis strategy much like to go about organizing, analyzing, numerating and interpreting data. The first step in analyzing this research involved organizing the data for this purpose which essentially means analysis using of the following as data, words derived from interviews, notes of description, from questionnaires, and documents where by the methods of organizing such data was different depending up on the research strategy or data collection technique. The interview data, for instance, were organized by grouping answer together across respondents. The questionnaires were analyzed, and compared tabulated by frequency and supported by explanation.

Data analyses of this study were based on inductive analysis, which means that the patterns, themes and categories of analysis produced from the data. These were emerge out of the data rather than being decided prior to data collection and analysis via understanding, examining, tabulating or recombining the problem to identify the cause and effects of human trafficking in Dodola woreda by 2018. The report data examined and analyzed based on data collected from the distributed questionnaires, policy documents and interviews with participants. The responses of the subjects was categorized in score tables, with varying percentages calculated interpretations and drawing conclusions is done in accordance with number of each item. For the case of qualitative data, field notes have been written and work edited at the end of each working day to ensure accuracy in recording consistency information given from the respondents. After the questionnaire designed, the data was reviewed to test its validity and relevance. In addition, the data gathered in questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive statics. Its importance descriptive frequency, percentage were computed. Therefore, the collected data were presented for the reader mainly in statement format, and tabulation, Finally, Summary of findings, conclusion and recommendation was made based on data collected.

Ethical Consideration

A strict code of conduct must adhere to while doing research. Because there are varying opinions across cultures and countries on what defines ethical behavior, the ethical clearance was obtained from University of Aksum. Permission had obtained from Dodola labour and social affair offices. Informed oral consent was obtained from the study participants after explaining the purpose and objective of the study. The respondents were told that they have the right to withdraw from giving response at any time during the interview. To ensure confidentiality and privacy of participant’s names or codes that led to identify the respondent for the third party were not recorded throughout the study.