Access to justice in Zanzibar must be understood, and re‑designed, with two specific categories of trafficked victims at its centre. First are victims of human trafficking and slavery‑like practices, including those hidden in corporate supply chains. Second are victims who are exploited to commit crime, including low‑level workers who, under pressure or coercion, recruit or supervise other workers while remaining structurally powerless themselves. A credible justice strategy must protect both groups, while shifting legal and investigative focus towards the commanders of organised trafficking networks and senior corporate actors who profit from exploitation.
Constitutional guarantees of access to justice, and general appeals to development and the rule of law, are insufficient unless they operate for these specific victims at the points where they are most vulnerable; in recruitment, transport, forced labour, criminalisation and removal or deportation. For workers in complex supply chains, justice requires accessible complaints mechanisms, safe whistle‑blowing channels and remedies that reach beyond the immediate contractor to the corporate entities that control pricing, production schedules and working conditions. For trafficked persons charged with immigration offences, drug running, petty theft, sex work or document fraud, justice requires early identification as victims, non‑punishment for conduct that is a direct consequence of trafficking, and legal representation capable of advancing those arguments effectively.
Modernising the legal framework should therefore be guided by a single animating test: does this rule help or hinder trafficked victims in holding organisers, controllers and senior corporate decision‑makers to account? Criminalisation of survival conduct, restrict standing, or make it practically impossible to litigate or complain against powerful corporate actors must not be allowed to stand. In Zanzibar and the mainland there is a need to strengthen corporate and command responsibility, create clear duties of human rights and trafficking due diligence in supply chains, and provide for civil, criminal and administrative liability of those who design, finance and direct exploitative systems. Recognition and regulation of paralegals and community‑based advisers are particularly important here: they are often the only actors close enough to affected workers to spot patterns of abuse, connect individuals to remedies and bring information about corporate and organised‑crime patterns to authorities.
Embedding ethical obligations on lawyers and strengthening legal aid mechanisms must logically be targeted at these two categories of victims. Access to justice schemes should prioritise strategic representation in cases involving trafficked defendants, low‑level “recruiters” or supervisors acting under coercion, and workers in opaque supply chains seeking to challenge exploitation higher up the corporate structure. Legal aid and paralegal programmes should be designed in partnership with labour inspectors, trade unions, migrant‑worker groups and anti‑trafficking NGOs so that action on such abuses travels up the chain, rather than stopping at the most visible, least powerful actors.
International and domestic law in Tanzania already supports this re‑orientation. requiring protection of victims from punishment for offences committed as a direct consequence of trafficking; to provide effective remedies and to regulate private actors whose practices enable exploitation. International labour standards and business and human rights norms emphasise corporate responsibility for human rights due diligence and remediation in supply chains. Incorporating these principles into domestic access to justice principles in criminal, labour and corporate law in Zanzibar would make it easier to distinguish between coerced low‑level actors and those who exercise genuine control and profit and ensure they are supported by legal and social entities.
Finally, access to justice must be written into every relevant legal instrument in a way that is operational for trafficked persons. That means concrete rights to information, interpretation, legal representation, protective measures and compensation for victims in both criminal and civil proceedings, with specific attention to migrants, women, children and informal workers. It also means institutional guidance to police, prosecutors and regulators that investigations should aim “upwards”: priority is to be given to cases against organisers, financiers, corrupt facilitators and senior corporate officers, while ensuring that low‑level participants who are themselves trafficked or structurally coerced are diverted away from punishment and towards support. In this way, access to justice becomes not just a general aspiration but the main tool for shifting accountability from the most visible, replaceable workers to those who design, direct and profit from human trafficking and slavery‑like practices. Recognising this corporate/criminal cross over as an access to justice issue in Zanzibar is the imperative.
About the co-author
Dr Ali Uki is the Principal of the Law School of Zanzibar.
