FREETOWN, 13th October 2026 – Traffickers are increasingly using Facebook, WhatsApp and fake overseas job offers to lure Sierra Leoneans into exploitation, the United States 2026 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report has revealed.
The report, which kept Sierra Leone on Tier 2, says while the country is making efforts, traffickers have become more sophisticated, using social media to advertise lucrative jobs in the Middle East, fake scholarships and modelling opportunities to recruit mostly young women and girls.
According to the report, victims are promised jobs as housemaids, shop attendants and hotel workers abroad with high pay, only to end up in domestic servitude, forced labour and sex trafficking when they arrive.
Inside Sierra Leone, the same tactics are being used to move people from villages to Freetown, mining areas and fishing communities for domestic servitude, street begging, forced labour in diamond mines, agriculture and sexual exploitation.
The US State Department said Sierra Leone investigated 39 trafficking cases and prosecuted 39 suspects during the reporting period, up from 13 investigations and 20 prosecutions the previous year, but only secured two convictions, down from four.
It also identified 72 victims – 37 women, 4 men, 18 boys and 13 girls – compared to 57 previously.
But the report warned that weak protection is making victims more vulnerable to re-trafficking. Shelters and support services remain limited, concentrated only in Freetown, with almost no services for male victims. The government relies heavily on NGOs and provides little funding.
In fact, government funding for prevention dropped from NLe245,700 to NLe90,000, and the report flagged corruption and alleged official complicity with no action taken against officials.
The 2022 Anti-Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Act carries a minimum of 25 years imprisonment without option of fine, but prosecutors and judges are still not fully trained on how to apply it.
The US recommended stronger public awareness campaigns to warn citizens about social media recruitment, especially fake overseas jobs that seem too good to be true, and urged people to report cases via the reopened toll-free anti-trafficking hotline.
Sierra Leone remains on Tier 2, meaning it does not fully meet minimum standards but is making significant efforts, alongside neighbours like Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal.
