Date of publication:

05/27/2025

United Republic of Tanzania (the)

Do domestic laws and policies prohibit forced or compulsory labour?

ANALYSIS

Assessment by population

Refugees
Asylum-seekers
Stateless persons
Analysis

Tanzania has put in place legal safeguards to prohibit forced and compulsory labor, reinforcing worker protections across sectors. The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2008 explicitly criminalizes all forms of human trafficking, including for labor exploitation, and imposes heavy penalties on perpetrators. Complementing this, the Employment and Labour Relations Act No. 6 of 2004 enshrines core labor rights—such as the right to freely chosen work and protection from coercion—thereby addressing forced labor indirectly through broader worker protections.

These legal instruments form part of Tanzania’s broader commitment to international labor standards, and apply to all individuals working within the country, including refugees and stateless persons, where employment is legally recognized. Enforcement is carried out through labor inspection systems and, in trafficking cases, through criminal justice channels.

    LAW & POLICY

    Related provisions of domestic law or policy

    The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act

    Legal provision

    Section 4.1 - Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons

    A person commits an offence of trafficking in person if that person - (a) recruits, transports, transfers, harbors, provides or receives a person by any means, including those done under the pretext of domestic or overseas employment, training or apprenticeship, for the( of prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labour; slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage; (b) introduces or matches a person to a foreign national for marriage for the of acquiring, buying, offering, selling or trading the person in order that person be engaged in prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labour, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage; (c) offers or contracts marriage, real or simulated, for the purpose of acquiring, buying, offering, selling or trading a person in order that person be engaged in prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labour or slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage; (d) undertakes or organizes sex tourism or sexual exploitation; (e) maintains or hires a person to engage in prostitution or pornography; (0 adopts or facilitates the adoption of persons for the purpose of prostitution, pornography, sexua lexploitation, forced-labour and slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage; (g) recruits, hires, adopts, transports or abducts - (i) a person, by means of threat or use of force, fraud, deceit, violence ,coercion or intimidation for the purpose of removal or sale of organs of the person; or a child or a disabled person for the purposes of engaging the child or the disabled person in armed activities.

    Section 5.1 - Penalties for trafficking in persons

    Any person who commits an offence under section 4 is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than two years and not more than ten years or to a fine of not less than five million shillings and not more than one hundred million shillings or to both.

    Employment and Labour Relations Act

    Legal provision

    Section 6.1 - Prohibition of forced labor

    Any person who procures, demands or imposes forced labour, commits an offence.

    Section 6.2 - Prohibition of forced labor

    For the purposes of this section, forced labour includes bonded labour or any work exacted from a person under the threat of a penalty and to which that person has not consented but does not include- (a) any work exacted under the National Defence Act, 1966 for work of a purely military character; (b) any work that forms part of the normal civic obligations of a citizen of the United Republic of Tanzania; (c) any work exacted from any person as a consequence of a conviction in a court of law, provided that the work is carried out under the supervision and control of a public authority and that the person is not hired to, or placed at, the disposal of private persons; (d) any work exacted in cases of an emergency or a circumstance that would endanger the existence or the well-being of the whole or part of the population; (e) minor communal services performed by the members of a community in the direct interest of that community after consultation with them or their direct representatives on the need for the services.