8th April 2025
This briefing report provides an overview of the key issues related to online and offline human exploitation in Sudan following the outbreak of the conflict on 15 April 2023. It details the challenges in identifying online human exploitation content on tech platforms. It also suggests opportunities for strengthening identification and removal of problematic content and supporting enforcement action internationally against different forms of exploitation in Sudan.
The criminals profiting from human exploitation in Sudan rely on offline and online networks to conduct their activities. These are private networks and groups closed to outsiders, and criminals use end-to-end encryption offered by mobile messaging platforms like Facebook, Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp to evade detection.
It is therefore challenging for local, international, and diaspora civil society organisations to monitor people smuggling and people trafficking networks to identify these. National enforcement authorities typically work with tech providers to locate and close down such activities and networks. However, the absence of effective enforcement capabilities from the Sudanese government means that tech providers must work doubly hard to identify and remove problematic content from their platforms.
