# Republic of the Congo - United States Department of State

- Republic of the Congo HomeReportsBureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices&#8230;Republic of the Congo				hide	document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {	if(window.jQuery) {		jQuery( document ).ready(function() {			if (jQuery(".bc_middle").hasClass("collapse")) {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});				jQuery(".bc_hide").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});			} else {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").hide();			}		});	}});																							2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Republic of the Congo																																					Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor																																																																																							Download Report																																																							Translations																																																																 In this section										/																							EXECUTIVE SUMMARY																																													EXECUTIVE SUMMARY																															Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person																																																									a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings																																																																											b. Disappearance																																																																											c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and Other Related Abuses																																																																			Prison and Detention Center Conditions																																																																																																																		d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention																																																																			Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees																																																																																																																		e. Denial of Fair Public Trial																																																																			Trial Procedures																																																								Political Prisoners and Detainees																																																																																																																		f. Transnational Repression																																																																											g. Property Seizure and Restitution																																																																											h. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence																																																																																	Section 2. Respect for Civil Liberties																																																									a. Freedom of Expression, Including for Members of the Press and Other Media																																																																			Internet Freedom																																																																																																																		b. Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly and Association																																																																			Freedom of Peaceful Assembly																																																																																																																		c. Freedom of Religion																																																																											d. Freedom of Movement and the Right to Leave the Country																																																																											e. Protection of Refugees																																																																											f. Status and Treatment of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)																																																																											g. Stateless Persons																																																																																	Section 3. Freedom to Participate in the Political Process																																																									Elections and Political Participation																																																																																	Section 4. Corruption in Government																															Section 5. Governmental Posture Towards International and Nongovernmental Monitoring and Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human Rights																															Section 6. Discrimination and Societal Abuses																																																									Women																																																																											Systemic Racial or Ethnic Violence and Discrimination																																																																											Indigenous Peoples																																																																											Children																																																																											Antisemitism																																																																											Trafficking in Persons																																																																											Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics																																																																											Persons with Disabilities																																																																											Other Societal Violence or Discrimination																																																																																	Section 7. Worker Rights																																																									a. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining																																																																											b. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor																																																																											c. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment																																																																											d. Discrimination (see section 6)																																																																											e. Acceptable Conditions of Work																																																																																																							EXECUTIVE SUMMARY				There were no significant changes in the human rights situation in the Republic of the Congo during the year.Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: arbitrary or unlawful killings, including extrajudicial killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; political prisoners or detainees; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including violence or threats of violence against journalists and censorship; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly; inability of citizens to change their government peacefully through free and fair elections; serious and unreasonable restrictions on political participation; serious government corruption; serious government restrictions on or harassment of domestic and international human rights organizations; extensive gender-based violence, including domestic and intimate partner violence and sexual violence; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting Indigenous peoples; trafficking in persons, including forced labor; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex persons; and the existence of the worst forms of child labor.The government took limited credible steps to identify and punish officials who may have committed human rights abuses, but enforcement was not consistent.																														Section 1.													 Respect for the Integrity of the Person												    																																																a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings										There were reports from domestic human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and on social media that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings, including extrajudicial killings, during the year. Apart from the case specified below, however, no independent confirmation was possible, leading to uncertainty regarding the frequency of the incidents and the number of persons arbitrarily deprived of life.Credible NGOs continued to report deaths resulting from abuse in police stations and pretrial detention centers. In February, bus driver Nkounka Alphie Guelor was arrested without a warrant in Brazzaville and taken to a police station for questioning in connection with the death of his work supervisor. Nkounka’s parents were permitted to visit him that day but thereafter were only allowed to communicate with him at a distance, and they reported he complained of serious pain and injury. Five days after his arrest, Nkounka’s parents were informed he had been transferred to a hospital for undisclosed health reasons. Nkounka died before receiving aid from the hospital. His parents were able to see his body at the hospital and noted signs of violent trauma. Two days after his death, Nkounka’s parents met with Brazzaville police officials who claimed the death resulted from an unknown illness and denied any responsibility for his death. A domestic NGO assisted the family in obtaining an independent autopsy, which revealed Nkounka died as a result of multiple blows and resulting injuries. At year’s end there were no reports of investigation into his death.																																				b. Disappearance										There were no reports of disappearances by or on behalf of government authorities.																																				c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and Other Related Abuses										The constitution prohibited torture and the law contained a general prohibition against assault and battery, but there was no legal framework specifically banning torture. There were credible reports from domestic human rights NGOs and on social media the government or its agents meted out cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment to detainees or convicts. There was at least one known case of rape and sexual abuse by a government agent: in August, a court convicted a naval officer of rape and sentenced him to 15 years of forced labor in prison.Officials took steps to prosecute or punish some members of the security forces, but enforcement was not consistent. The security forces generally acted with impunity.																Prison and Detention Center Conditions						Prison conditions were harsh and life threatening due to shortages of food and potable water, gross overcrowding, and inadequate sanitary conditions.Abusive Physical Conditions: The Brazzaville Prison, built in 1943 to accommodate 150 inmates, held more than five times its designed capacity. The Pointe-Noire Prison, built in 1934 to hold 75 inmates, held more than six times its designed capacity. The food provided to inmates did not meet minimum caloric or nutritional requirements, but prison authorities usually permitted inmates’ families to supply them with additional food. Outbreaks of disease were common, and there was a severe deficit of medical and psychological care. A domestic NGO alleged prisoners died due to abuse, neglect, and overcrowding, but the number and exact causes of prisoner deaths while in custody were unavailable.Administration: Prison rules allowed prisoners and detainees to submit complaints to judicial authorities without censorship, but officials did not respect this right. Authorities reportedly did not investigate credible allegations of abusive conditions raised by NGOs and detainees’ families.Independent Monitoring: The government provided limited prison and detention center access to domestic human rights groups. Authorities repeatedly denied access to the interior of several prisons to a domestic NGO focused on prison conditions that was considered independent by observers. Other human rights NGOs that monitored detention conditions requested letters of permission from the Ministry of Justice to visit prisons. Their repeated requests went unanswered.																										d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention										The constitution and law prohibited arbitrary arrest and detention and provided for the right for a person to challenge the lawfulness of his or her detention in court. Domestic NGOs reported the government did not regularly observe these requirements.																Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees						The constitution and law required that a duly authorized official issue a warrant before an arrest, that a person be apprehended openly, that a lawyer be present during initial questioning, and that detainees be brought before a judge within three days and either charged or released within four months. The government regularly failed to respect these provisions.There was a bail system, but most detainees could not afford to post bail. Authorities sometimes informed detainees of charges against them at the time of arrest, but the filing of formal charges often took more than one week. There were credible reports authorities arrested detainees secretly and without judicial authorization, and sometimes detained suspects incommunicado or put them under house arrest.The law stated authorities could hold a detainee for a maximum of 72 hours in a police jail pending review by an attorney general. Thereafter, authorities were required to either release or transfer the individual to a prison for pretrial detention. Authorities generally did not observe the 72-hour maximum and frequently held detainees for several weeks before an attorney general freed or transferred them to a prison to await trial. The law stated a defendant or accused person could apply for provisional release at any point during his or her detention and that the request should generally be granted, provided the judicial investigation was sufficiently advanced and the accused did not pose a risk of bribing witnesses or a threat to public order. Provisional release was nevertheless often denied.Arbitrary Arrest: Credible reports suggested arbitrary and false arrests continued to occur. From January to June, domestic NGOs documented 31 cases of arbitrary arrest and detention. In September, a court convicted five police officers of criminal conspiracy, arbitrary arrests, extortion, and abuse of office and sentenced them to seven years of forced labor in prison.Pretrial Detention: Lengthy pretrial detention was a problem, and between 60 and 75 percent of detainees in prison were pretrial detainees. Prison authorities claimed the average pretrial detention for nonfelony cases lasted one to three months and at least 12 months for felony cases. Human rights activists, however, stated the actual average was much longer for felony cases and sometimes exceeded the maximum sentence for the alleged crime.Lengthy pretrial detentions were due to the judicial system’s lack of capacity and, according to observers, a lack of political will to address the problem.																										e. Denial of Fair Public Trial										The constitution and law provided for an independent judiciary, but the government did not always respect judicial independence and employed political influence at times. Corruption also reportedly undermined judicial independence. Authorities generally abided by court orders; however, judges did not always issue direct court orders against government officials accused of crimes.																Trial Procedures						The constitution provided for the right to a fair trial, but authorities did not always respect this right.Defendants in all criminal trials enjoyed the presumption of innocence and had the right to be present at their trials and to consult with an attorney in a timely manner, although this did not always occur. The law obligated the government to provide legal assistance to any indigent defendant facing serious criminal charges, but such assistance was not always available because the government did not generally pay for public defenders.Defendants had the right to adequate time and facilities to prepare a defense, to confront or question accusers and witnesses against them, and to present witnesses and evidence on their own behalf. Defendants had the right not to be compelled to testify or confess guilt and have the right to appeal. In politicized cases, the government often denied most or all of these rights to defendants.						Political Prisoners and Detainees						There were reports of political prisoners and detainees, although verifiable estimates of their total number were not available. While the government asserted there were no political prisoners, credible human rights groups and international observers alleged the government detained or imprisoned persons solely or chiefly because of their political beliefs. According to the most recent available data, a 2020 report by the UN Mission in Brazzaville based on information gathered from domestic NGOs, 24 persons were in detention for political reasons. The government did not comment on the release of any such prisoners.Former presidential candidates Andre Okombi Salissa and Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko remained in prison at year’s end, serving sentences of 20 years of hard labor after being convicted several years ago of “undermining the internal security of the state” as well as “illegal possession of weapons and ammunition of war.” The government permitted limited access to those considered political prisoners by international human rights and humanitarian organizations and diplomatic officials.																										f. Transnational Repression										Not applicable.																																				g. Property Seizure and Restitution										Not applicable.																																				h. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence										The constitution and law prohibited such actions, but there were reports the government did not always respect these prohibitions.Government authorities reportedly entered homes without judicial or other appropriate authorization, monitored private movements, and employed informer systems. There were unverified reports authorities monitored private digital communications without appropriate legal authority, including email, text messaging, and other digital communications intended to remain private.																																					Section 2.													 Respect for Civil Liberties												    																																																a. Freedom of Expression, Including for Members of the Press and Other Media										The constitution and law provided for freedom of expression in all forms of communication and prohibited censorship, including for members of the press and other media, but the government did not always respect these rights.Freedom of Expression: Individuals could criticize the government publicly or privately but risked reprisal. The constitution criminalized speech that incited ethnic hatred, violence, or civil war and made it punishable by no less than five years in prison. It also criminalized any act or event that promoted racism or xenophobia.In July, authorities arrested and detained an artist, Ngatali Mouya Servet known as DSP Malakay, and a medical doctor in Dolisie for several days after they posted videos criticizing the government response to an outbreak of shigellosis in the area. Another local activist, Amedee Loembe De Leau, was detained for two days after attempting to take a photograph in front of a local hospital while holding a sign reading “We All Fight Against Shigellosis.”Violence and Harassment: There were reports of direct and indirect intimidation of journalists by the government, including telephone calls from officials and anonymous persons warning journalists and news outlets not to use videos of politically sensitive events or publish certain stories. As of December, there were no reports of journalist arrests.Censorship or Content Restrictions for Members of the Press and Other Media, Including Online Media: Media outlets were required to register with a governmental regulatory council, and outlets that violated council regulations were subject to financial sanctions or temporary shutdown. The president appointed the director of the council.Many journalists and editors at larger circulation media outlets reportedly practiced self-censorship. Newspapers published open letters written by government opponents.Libel/Slander Laws: The law provided for monetary penalties and suspension of a publication’s permission to print for defamation and incitement to violence. Authorities occasionally brought charges under the law.																Internet Freedom						The government did not restrict or disrupt access to the internet or censor online content.																										b. Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly and Association										The government limited freedom of peaceful assembly but generally respected freedom of association.																Freedom of Peaceful Assembly						The constitution and law provided for freedom of peaceful assembly. Nevertheless, the government required authorization from the Ministry of Interior and Decentralization and appropriate local officials for assemblies and demonstrations. There were credible reports of cases where groups were denied a permit from local authorities during the year. On March 9, the Brazzaville prefect denied a request from members of the opposition political party Mouvement Republicain to hold a peaceful rally in honor of deceased former presidential candidate Guy Brice Parfait Kolelas, on the grounds the group was not an officially recognized political party. On March 13, party leaders presented proof of their legal status as an organization and requested permission to hold the rally on March 25. On March 23, the prefect again denied the request on the grounds the rally would “damage the social fabric and endanger public peace.” The prefect also issued a statement threatening the arrest of anyone participating in the rally, as it had not been sanctioned by local authorities. There were no reports of violence against demonstrators.																										c. Freedom of Religion										See the Department of State’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report at    https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.																																				d. Freedom of Movement and the Right to Leave the Country										The constitution and law provided for freedom of internal movement, foreign travel, emigration, and repatriation. The government generally respected these rights.Foreign Travel: By law all citizens were eligible for a passport. The government, however, lacked sufficient passports to meet demand, due in part to hoarding of blank passports for use by senior politicians and their family members. Exorbitant “expedite” fees were charged to persons lacking political connections.																																				e. Protection of Refugees										The government cooperated with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other humanitarian organizations in providing protection and assistance to refugees, returning refugees, or asylum seekers, as well as other persons of concern.Access to Asylum: The law provided for the granting of refugee status, and the government had a system for providing protection to refugees and asylum seekers. An interministerial committee considered applications for refugee status.Employment: The law did not address employment for refugees, but various government decrees prohibited foreigners, including refugees, from practicing small trade activities and working in the public transportation sector.Access to Basic Services: UNHCR-funded primary schooling was accessible to most refugees. Authorities limited access to secondary and vocational education for refugees. Some secondary education occurred at schools where refugees volunteered to teach or received payment from parents of refugee children.Although refugees had equal access to community health centers and hospitals, there were reports of refugees receiving discriminatory treatment at some hospitals, including insults by medical personnel, and long waiting times for treatment without regard to priority relative to their medical conditions.Durable Solutions: Former Rwandan refugees could obtain resident status provided they had a valid Rwandan passport. Many Rwandans feared deportation if they received a passport, despite the assurances of local authorities and UNHCR this would not be the case.																																				f. Status and Treatment of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)										UN and government officials reported 40,329 of the estimated 264,000 estimated IDPs who fled the Pool region during a 2016-17 conflict had returned to their homes and villages; the government promoted their safe and voluntary return. Anecdotal reports suggested IDPs who did not return to their home areas resettled voluntarily in other parts of the country, and there were no reports IDPs were targeted for abuse. Other IDPs in the country included residents in areas affected by seasonal floods, who generally returned home when waters receded. The number of IDPs increased as flooding grew worse in recent years.For further information about IDPs in the country, please see the materials of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center:  https://www.internal-displacement.org .																																				g. Stateless Persons										UNHCR reported 105,340 persons were at risk of statelessness in the country. As of August, the government issued approximately 2,000 birth certificates with UNHCR support to the Indigenous population.																																					Section 3.													 Freedom to Participate in the Political Process												    																						The constitution and law provided citizens the ability to choose their government in free and fair periodic elections held by secret ballot and based on universal and equal suffrage.																										Elections and Political Participation										Abuses or Irregularities in Recent Elections: National direct elections, last conducted in July 2022 legislative and local polling, were widely reported to be fair and free of major abuses or irregularities. Although election observation was limited by often-changing government requirements, most observers who participated noted logistical problems, including incomplete distribution of voter cards, inadequate supplies, and the delayed opening of several polling stations. They also reported a heavy presence of security forces both inside and outside polling stations.Political Parties and Political Participation: Political parties and civil society groups faced restrictions on their ability to participate in the political and electoral process. The law conferred recognition on 55 of 200 parties. According to the government, the remaining political parties did not meet nationwide representation requirements.There were unconfirmed reports of government funds being used to secure transportation and illicit votes, and for campaigning activities leading up to and during the two weeks of 2022 electoral campaigning. Since no official report was available on campaign financing, however, these reports could not be verified.Participation of Women and Members of Marginalized or Vulnerable Groups: The political process excluded many Indigenous persons and persons with disabilities. Reasons included geographical isolation in remote areas, lack of registration, cultural barriers, stigmatization by the majority Bantu population, and government inaction (see section 6, Indigenous Persons and Persons with Disabilities).																																					Section 4.													 Corruption in Government												    																						The law provided for criminal penalties for corruption by officials. The government did not regularly apply the anti-corruption law, however, and many officials reportedly engaged in corrupt practices with impunity. There were numerous reports of government corruption.Corruption: Domestic and international organizations regularly accused government officials, including the president, his family, and senior ministers of corruption. The accusations generally alleged officials diverted revenues from their official portfolios into personal foreign bank accounts before officially declaring the remaining funds. The government suspended and removed nine prosecutors for alleged misconduct, including corruption and misuse of funds, during the year.For additional information concerning corruption in the country, please see the Department of State’s Investment Climate Statement for the country, and the Department of State’s International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, which includes information on financial crimes.																											Section 5.													 Governmental Posture Towards International and Nongovernmental Monitoring and Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human Rights												    																						Several domestic and international human rights groups faced occasional government restrictions during their monitoring and investigation activities and when publishing their findings on human rights conditions or cases. Government officials were not cooperative with or responsive to the views of these groups. According to Freedom House, some domestic human rights groups did not report on specific human rights abuses due to fear of reprisal by the government.Retribution against Human Rights Defenders: In August 2022 several police officers were detained following accusations they participated in an armed robbery of a woman known as “Mere Alice” in Brazzaville. Videos of the officers’ interrogation circulated on social media, appearing to show the officers confessing and implicating a police captain in a series of unsolved armed robberies in Brazzaville. After a coalition of domestic human rights NGOs demanded a judicial investigation, the captain was arrested. Two of the NGOs reported subsequent break-ins at their Brazzaville offices, including the theft of several laptops and documents by uniformed individuals. The NGOs filed police reports, but at year’s end there was no reported progress in the investigations.Government Human Rights Bodies: The government-sponsored Human Rights Commission was the government human rights entity responsible for addressing public concerns regarding human rights. The commission had little effectiveness or independence, and it undertook few activities directly related to human rights concerns.																											Section 6.													 Discrimination and Societal Abuses												    																																																Women										Rape and Domestic Violence: The law prohibited rape, including spousal rape, and prescribed sentences of between 10 and 20 years in prison and monetary fines based on the severity of the crime. The law was written to cover only women; in the country’s legal vernacular, “rape” was used exclusively in cases involving women survivors, while “indecent assault” was used in cases of rape of men. Authorities made efforts to enforce the law, but judgments often took years to be rendered and penalties applied. NGOs and women’s advocacy groups reported rape, especially spousal rape, was common. Judicial sector personnel reported no prosecutions for spousal rape due to the need for courts to institutionalize the law, a lack of reporting due to fees charged by police before they would investigate allegations, and survivors’ fear of reprisal.The law prohibited domestic violence, with maximum penalties including prison terms and hard labor. The government took steps to enforce the law but was impeded by low reporting due to societal pressure on survivors to stay silent. According to court system observers, most of the reported cases were filed by women who had since left the country or who usually lived abroad.Other Forms of Gender-based Violence or Harassment: Widespread sexual harassment, including at the workplace, often went unreported and unpunished due to societal pressure on survivors to stay silent.Discrimination: The law provided women the same legal status as men, and authorities made efforts to enforce the law. Individual bias and customary beliefs, however, contributed to societal pressures to limit the rights of women. Adultery was illegal for both women and men, but the penalty differed. Under civil law the husband could receive only a fine for adultery, while the wife could receive a prison sentence. Polygamy was legal, while polyandry was not. Women experienced discrimination in divorce settlements, specifically regarding property and financial assets. The law considered the man the head of the household, unless he became incapacitated or abandoned the family. The law dictated that in the absence of an agreement between spouses, men could choose the residence of the family. Although the law prohibited gender discrimination, women experienced discrimination with respect to employment, credit, equal pay, and owning or managing businesses. Women worked in disproportionately high numbers in the informal sector and in lower-paying jobs, where they were less likely to benefit from legal protections. Reliable data on the gender wage gap were unavailable.Reproductive Rights: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization on the part of government authorities.According to a 2022 report by the Ministry of Health, the most recent available data, 92 percent of women gave birth with skilled health attendants. Government officials noted these figures were based on populations in urban areas; women in rural and remote locations in northern areas faced geographic barriers and a lack of access to transportation infrastructure, limiting their access to care. NGOs reported local health clinics and public hospitals were generally in poor condition and lacked experienced health care staff.The government provided access to sexual and reproductive health services for survivors of sexual violence. Emergency contraception was generally available as part of the clinical management of rape, but this coverage was limited to three large urban centers: Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire, and Dolisie. Postexposure prophylaxis was not available.In 2017 the World Health Organization estimated there were 378 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Government officials cited limitations on women’s empowerment to make their own health decisions, geographic barriers, lack of qualified health service personnel and of health centers, and a limited number of referrals by general practitioners as the primary factors influencing maternal deaths. Women sometimes died in labor on the way to the hospital in rural areas, especially in the north of the country. Women from both Indigenous and other geographically isolated communities suffered disproportionately from rates of obstetric fistula due to unattended childbirth. Despite a law mandating free emergency obstetric care and caesarian sections, women often had to pay for care before they received any treatment.There were no reports of girls’ education being interrupted or their exclusion from participation in other aspects of society due to menstruation. In urban centers, women and girls generally had access to menstruation products, either because they could afford them or had access to local and international NGOs that provided such products free of charge. In rural areas, fewer families had the money to buy items, but local and international NGOs worked to provide menstruation products.There were no laws or school regulations banning pregnant girls from attending school, and they were generally not excluded from education or other services by the service provider. In urban centers, girls who were pregnant generally continued in school unless there were health concerns. In some circumstances, families removed their daughters from school in the case of pregnancy due to social expectations for motherhood, but this was not the norm. In rural areas, it was more common for girls to leave school if pregnant due to family and social expectations that they no longer needed school, and the next step was instead motherhood.																																				Systemic Racial or Ethnic Violence and Discrimination										The law prohibited discrimination based on ethnicity, but the government made little effort to enforce it.																																				Indigenous Peoples										Locally, the phrase “Indigenous peoples” referred to forest-dwelling communities that lived a seminomadic lifestyle and practiced a traditional socioeconomic system based on hunting and gathering of forest products. Most Indigenous communities lived in rural or isolated parts of the country with limited access to the government or its representatives. According to a joint survey by the government and the United Nations in 2017, the most recent available data, Indigenous peoples represented 10 percent of the country’s total population.The law provided special status and recognition for Indigenous populations. Additionally, the constitution stipulated the state should provide promotion and protection of Indigenous peoples’ rights. In 2019 the government created an interministerial committee for the monitoring and evaluation of Indigenous rights, protection of cultural property, the status of certain civil measures, and promotion of education, literacy, and basic social services. The government continued a series of public campaigns to educate members of Indigenous communities, civil society, and government agencies regarding the rights of Indigenous people.Nevertheless, according to domestic NGOs, geographic isolation, cultural differences, and lack of political inclusion marginalized Indigenous peoples throughout the country. NGOs and UN agencies reported members of Indigenous communities experienced episodic discrimination, forced labor, and violence. The UN special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, after a visit in 2019, reported that Indigenous people faced significant discrimination, exclusion, and marginalization, including in their access to health services, education, employment, and political participation. According to UNICEF, poverty levels remained high in Indigenous communities and a lack of access to social services remained the main socioeconomic hurdle for these populations. Other Indigenous communities living in more urban areas had greater access to social services but feared harassment by members of the majority Bantu non-Indigenous population. Government decrees in 2019 mandated free access to education until age 16 for all Indigenous children, regardless of whether they had birth certificates, yet education access remained a problem for many Indigenous youth due to discrimination.																																				Children										Birth Registration: Failure to register births could result in denial of public services such as education and issuance of national identity documents, including passports.Education: Boys were five times more likely than girls to attend high school, and four times more likely than girls in high school to attend university.Child Abuse: There were laws against child abuse. NGOs reported child abuse was prevalent but rarely reported to authorities, which hindered effective enforcement of the law. Authorities generally investigated the few reports they received.Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: The law prohibited child marriage, and the legal age for marriage was 18 for women and 21 for men. Underage marriage was possible with a judge’s permission and with the permission of both sets of parents; the law did not specify a minimum age in such cases. The penalty for forced marriage between an adult and child was a prison sentence ranging from three months to two years and fines. During the year the government did not prosecute any such cases.There was no government program focused on preventing early or forced marriage. According to UNICEF, 27 percent of girls were married before age 18 and 7 percent before age 15. Many couples engaged in informal marriages that were not legally recognized.Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law provided penalties for crimes against children such as trafficking, pornography, neglect, and abuse. A lack of specificity in the law was an obstacle to effective enforcement because the law did not address sale, grooming, offering, or procuring for sexual exploitation. The government generally enforced laws on child pornography when reported. The minimum age for consensual sex was 18.																																				Antisemitism										There was a very small Jewish community. There were no known reports of antisemitic incidents.																																				Trafficking in Persons										See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at  https://www.state.gov/trafficking in-persons-report/.																																				Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics										Criminalization: No law specifically prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between persons older than age 21. The law prescribed a prison term ranging from six months to three years and a fine for anyone who “commits a shameless act or an act against nature with an individual of the same sex younger than age 21.” There were no known reports of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex (LGBTQI+) persons being arrested or prosecuted under the law during the year.Violence and Harassment: Local NGOs reported psychological and physical harassment of LGBTQI+ persons, as well as instances of financial extortion, by the government and nonstate actors against LGBTQI+ persons. On occasion, police used the law regarding “an act against nature” as a pretext to solicit bribes from men perceived to be gay. Because community members were often reluctant to engage for any reason with authorities, very few abuse cases were officially reported, but observers noted authorities investigated such reports when made.Discrimination: The law did not prohibit discrimination by state or nonstate actors based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics. LGBTQI+ persons seldom revealed their identity due to pervasive discrimination against the community, leaving evidence of discrimination mostly anecdotal. LGBTQI+ persons faced widespread discrimination in access to health care, housing, employment, education, and other social services.Availability of Legal Gender Recognition: Legal gender recognition was not available. Transgender and nonbinary persons faced significant problems in securing employment, education, housing, and social services because their legal identity documents did not align with their gender expression.Involuntary or Coercive Medical or Psychological Practices: In contrast with previous years, there were no reports of involuntary or coercive medical or psychological practices specifically targeting LGBTQI+ persons.There were no known reports that intersex children or nonconsenting adults were subjected to medically unnecessary “normalization” surgeries.Restrictions of Freedom of Expression, Association, or Peaceful Assembly: There were no specific restrictions on freedom of expression, association, or assembly beyond those experienced by the rest of the population.																																				Persons with Disabilities										Persons with disabilities generally could access education, health services, public buildings, and transportation on an equal basis with others, despite the absence of laws that specifically mandated such access. The government provided limited official information and communications in accessible formats to persons with disabilities.The law prohibited discrimination against persons with disabilities, including in employment and occupation. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Humanitarian Action was the lead ministry responsible for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities, but authorities did not enforce the law effectively, and persons with disabilities at times experienced discrimination. The government provided separate schools for students with hearing disabilities in Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire, but some children with physical disabilities attended regular public schools. Some voting sites on election day lacked accommodations to make polling stations fully accessible to persons with disabilities.																																				Other Societal Violence or Discrimination										Anecdotal reports indicated significant societal discrimination against persons with HIV and AIDS.																																					Section 7.													 Worker Rights												    																																																a. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining										The law provided for workers to form and join independent unions, bargain collectively, and conduct legal strikes. The law prohibited antiunion discrimination and required reinstatement of workers dismissed for union activity. The government generally did not effectively enforce laws protecting freedom of association, collective bargaining, and the right to strike for workers. Penalties were commensurate with those for comparable violations. There were no reports the government applied penalties for violations. Formal labor complaints were rare due to workers’ fear of reprisal.The law allowed workers to form and join unions of their choice without previous authorization or excessive requirements, excepting members of the security forces and other services “essential for protecting the general interest.” The law allowed unions to conduct their activities without interference.The law allowed the Recommendations Committee, a government body, to intervene in labor disputes and recommend resolutions, which became legally binding if the parties to the dispute did not challenge it within four days.Workers had the right to strike, provided they had exhausted lengthy and complex conciliation and nonbinding arbitration procedures and given seven business days’ notice. Solidarity strikes or strikes regarding political matters were unlawful. Participation in an unlawful strike constituted serious misconduct and could result in criminal prosecution and a prison sentence of forced labor. The government practiced forced prison labor, including of prisoners held for political offenses and for participating in illegal strikes. Nonviolently occupying a premise also constituted serious misconduct. The law required the continuation of a minimum service in all public services as essential to protect the general interest, and workers’ refusal to take part was considered gross misconduct. Some employers used subcontracting and short-term contracts to circumvent laws prohibiting antiunion discrimination.																																				b. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor										See the Department of State’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report at  https://www.state.gov/trafficking in-persons-report/.																																				c. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment										See the Department of Labor’s Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor at    https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/resources/reports/child-labor/findings/ .																																				d. Discrimination (see section 6)																																														e. Acceptable Conditions of Work										Wage and Hour Laws: Workers in the public sector were accorded a national minimum wage that exceeded the poverty line, as did the minimum wage for private-sector employees. No official minimum wage existed in the agricultural or informal sectors. The law provided for a standard workweek of 40 hours and provided for overtime pay for hours worked in excess of that figure. The law did not limit the maximum number of work hours per week, although it called for a minimum of 24 hours of time off per week.Occupational Safety and Health: The Ministry of Labor set health and safety regulations that corresponded with international standards. Inspectors were trained for both wage and hour and occupational safety and health (OSH) compliance. There were no known reports the government proactively identified unsafe conditions, nor of cases in which workers filed formal OSH complaints. Workers had no specific right to remove themselves from situations that endangered their health or safety without jeopardizing their employment. NGOs reported safety violations commonly occurred in commercial fishing, logging, quarries, and at private construction sites.Wage, Hour, and OSH Enforcement: The Ministry of Labor was responsible for enforcing the minimum wage law, and penalties were commensurate with those for comparable violations. Penalties were rarely applied against violators.The government did not effectively enforce OSH laws. While health and safety regulations required biannual Ministry of Labor inspections of businesses, businesses reported the visits occurred much less frequently. The size of the inspectorate was not sufficient to enforce compliance with the law. Penalties for noncompliance of OSH laws were not commensurate for similar crimes such as negligence. Penalties were rarely applied against violators, and generally in only the most egregious cases.There were no existing credible data from the government, but international organizations estimated that 65 percent of workers were employed in the informal sector. The government did not enforce labor laws in the informal sector.																																				    							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Respect for the Integrity of the Person																																							a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings																																																						b. Disappearance																																																						c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and Other Related Abuses																																																				Prison and Detention Center Conditions																																																																																				d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention																																																				Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees																																																																																				e. Denial of Fair Public Trial																																																				Trial Procedures																																												Political Prisoners and Detainees																																																																																				f. Transnational Repression																																																						g. Property Seizure and Restitution																																																						h. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence																																																			Section 2. Respect for Civil Liberties																																							a. Freedom of Expression, Including for Members of the Press and Other Media																																																				Internet Freedom																																																																																				b. Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly and Association																																																				Freedom of Peaceful Assembly																																																																																				c. Freedom of Religion																																																						d. Freedom of Movement and the Right to Leave the Country																																																						e. Protection of Refugees																																																						f. Status and Treatment of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)																																																						g. Stateless Persons																																																			Section 3. Freedom to Participate in the Political Process																																							Elections and Political Participation																																																			Section 4. Corruption in Government																Section 5. Governmental Posture Towards International and Nongovernmental Monitoring and Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human Rights																Section 6. Discrimination and Societal Abuses																																							Women																																																						Systemic Racial or Ethnic Violence and Discrimination																																																						Indigenous Peoples																																																						Children																																																						Antisemitism																																																						Trafficking in Persons																																																						Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics																																																						Persons with Disabilities																																																						Other Societal Violence or Discrimination																																																			Section 7. Worker Rights																																							a. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining																																																						b. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor																																																						c. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment																																																						d. Discrimination (see section 6)																																																						e. Acceptable Conditions of Work																																																									Tags																					Bureau of African Affairs																								Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor																								Republic of the Congo
- The Minerals Security Partnership Announces Collaboration in Minerals Exploration, Production, and Processing Between GECAMINES in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and JOGMEC in Japan Office of the SpokespersonThe United States, as Chair of the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), and MSP partners, announces the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between LA GENERALE DES CARRIERES ET DES MINES (GECAMINES) and the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC). This milestone collaboration, forged through dialogue among MSP partners, creates a framework for coordination in mineral exploration, production, and processing in alignment with our shared commitment to the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI)’s development of the Lobito Corridor. The MOU will create a framework for cooperation in the areas of mining and mineral resources with the intention of expanding of business opportunities for the parties.This coordination among MSP partners is a powerful demonstration of the MSP’s efforts to secure and diversify critical mineral supply chains, which bring economic benefits to local communities and source countries such as the DRC. In addition, GECAMINES will be a key player in the Lobito Corridor project thanks to its large portfolio of joint-venture projects in production, representing over 1.5 million tons of copper cathodes and 100,000 tons of cobalt hydroxide and more to be commissioned from projects under construction.Learn more about the Minerals Security Partnership.To stay up to date, follow Under Secretary Fernandez on X, LinkedIn, and Facebook.For press inquiries, please contact:&nbsp;E_Communications@state.gov.						Tags																					Bureau of African Affairs																								Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs																								Japan																								Office of the Spokesperson																								Republic of the Congo																								Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment
- The Ceasefire in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo Matthew Miller, Department SpokespersonWe commend all parties to the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that have shown restraint and reiterate our call for further steps to reduce tensions and demonstrate a commitment to the peaceful resolution of conflict.  In particular, we thank DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame for their leadership and contributions in this effort.The United States urges all parties to the conflict to redouble efforts to respect the 72-hour ceasefire and to facilitate the withdrawal of forces controlling the locality of Mushaki and the RP1030 Road (Kirolwire-Kitchanga).  We reaffirm our support for the Luanda and Nairobi Processes and call on all parties to adhere fully to commitments made under regional mediation processes.
- Secretary Antony J. Blinken at the Anti-Corruption Champions Award Ceremony Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of StateWashington, D.C.Burns AuditoriumASSISTANT SECRETARY ROBINSON:  Good morning, everybody.  Before we get started this morning, I’d like to acknowledge the tragedy in the Seychelles.  Commissioner De Silva, our thoughts are with you and your country, your people, at this time.It’s an honor to welcome this year’s Anti-Corruption Champions Award honorees.  Thank you for joining us here today and from across the globe.  My name is Todd Robinson, the assistant secretary of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, or INL as it’s better known.  And let me give you just a little bit of an overview of what we’re going to do this morning.We have, as you see, a high-powered lineup for you today – (laughter) – starting with Secretary Antony Blinken, who has made it his business since day one to place the fight against corruption at the center of our foreign policy.  We also have here from – we will also hear from Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Uzra Zeya, a diplomat with three decades of experience around the world, and my boss.  (Laughter.)  And Richard Nephew, our global anti-corruption coordinator, is going to introduce our honorees today.  We will also have an opportunity to hear from one of our inspiring award recipients.As I mentioned, the fight against corruption is front and center in our U.S. foreign policy.  As I’m sure our honorees can attest, this fight is a difficult one, but from Europe to Africa to Central America, we have seen remarkable wins in 2023.In Guatemala, there was an election victory by a presidential candidate, Bernardo Arévalo from the Semilla party, who ran on a platform of weeding out corruption.In Ukraine, INL works closely with anti-corruption investigators and prosecutors, who this year alone have opened cases against over 20 high-level government officials, including the former chief justice of the supreme court.  Since the summer, Ukraine has advanced significant reform measures, including requiring government officials to declare their assets and adding judges to the High Anti-Corruption Court.In Liberia, our embassy’s stalwart support for action against corruption has put compromised officials on the defensive and is fueling the Liberian public’s desire for increased accountability and sanctions.As you’ll see shortly, the tenacious men and women with us here today are responsible for successes like these.  Tenacious, but also – let’s not forget – fearless.  Corruption is silent, secret, and corrosive.  People know it’s out there but it’s difficult to root out.  That has not deterred our honorees, who have joined this fight at great personal and professional risk, but not without recognition.  To today’s honorees, we see what you are doing and we applaud it.With that, I would like to invite Under Secretary Zeya.  (Applause.)UNDER SECRETARY ZEYA:  Thank you to my dear friend, Assistant Secretary Robinson.  Your leadership on this issue set has been indispensable.  Secretary Blinken, Coordinator Nephew, colleagues and friends, I am delighted to be here today to celebrate these courageous honorees.This weekend, we will commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the first and only global anti-corruption instrument, the UN Convention Against Corruption, or UNCAC.  This distinguished group, through their advocacy and actions, embodies the central message of that consequential document:  The betrayal of the public trust will no longer be tolerated.The drafters of UNCAC, which included the United States, understood the corrosive impact of corruption and recognized it as a transnational challenge.  It affects all countries, regardless of the level of development, political system, or history.  Thus, preventing and countering corruption is a shared responsibility among all countries.UNCAC responded to these threats by providing governments with the tools to counter this scourge at the global level.  The convention endures.  Its comprehensive set of standards, measures, and rules are even more relevant today than they were 20 years ago.  What we’ve learned since the UNCAC’s adoption is that while corruption is a cross-cutting global challenge, every country experiences it in different ways, which requires tailored solutions.For example, in Moldova, through the courageous work of President Sandu’s administration, the country is countering Russia’s interference and the actions of other corrupt actors by fortifying its democracy, modernizing its economy, and aligning its institutions with its European neighbors.  I myself had the privilege of visiting Moldova last week, and I was honored to meet with Minister of Justice Veronica Mihailov-Moraru, who is on the front lines of these efforts and is one of the champions that we are celebrating here today.For our part, President Biden has elevated anti-corruption as a core national security interest.  We’re actively implementing the first-ever U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption that the President issued two years ago.  Now, this strategy has domestic and international components, acknowledging that we must combat corruption here at home as well as prioritize it in our foreign policy.  We’re also committed to working with all of you, the honorees here today and all of those who stand with us across the globe, dedicated to shining a light on corrupt behavior.When Secretary Blinken launched the Anti-Corruption Champions Award in 2021, we not only wanted to celebrate you, but we also want to learn from your invaluable expertise and experience.  The fight against corruption is a collective effort, and thus we must foster critical engagement across public and private institutions and across borders.  This will bolster our policies and advance the unshakable principles of accountability and integrity ingrained in the UNCAC.So thank you all for joining us here today, and congratulations again to our honorees.I now have the immense honor of introducing an admired friend and a phenomenal boss, Secretary of State Antony Blinken.  (Applause.)SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you.  Good morning, everyone.AUDIENCE:  Good morning.SECRETARY BLINKEN:  So this is a day, a moment I’ve been looking forward to.  And we’ll share the reasons why in just a minute.  But first, let me say to Under Secretary Zeya, to Assistant Secretary Robinson, to our Coordinator Nephew:  Thank you not just for today, but for the extraordinary work you’re doing every day, including and notably on taking the fight to corruption.In public service – whether in government or in civil society – I know it can feel at times like the challenges are just too big; the forces arrayed against change too strong, too entrenched to make meaningful progress.One of the things that I love most about this ceremony each year is that every one of our awardees has proved that idea wrong.  There is no force against progress that is actually immovable.  You’ve demonstrated with your work, with your courage, with your commitment that it can be done.  Even in places where impunity is the rule, you’ve shown how determined individuals can tip the balance, make the difference toward justice.Today, we gather not only to honor these extraordinary champions, but to learn from them.  Corrupt officials and their partners are constantly borrowing from each other’s playbooks.  Well, governments, organizations, citizens committed to fighting corruption need to do the same thing, because in so many different ways, in so many different places, each of you has found a particular angle, a particular way of being effective in combatting corruption.  And so the more we’re talking to each other, the more we’re listening and learning from you, the more effective we are going to be.Now, before speaking to the accomplishments of the awardees, let me underscore that no matter who they are or where they work, none of them does this alone – and I know you would be the first to say that.Indeed, one of the reasons that these leaders are so effective is because they inspire others to join them.  So today, we’re honoring not only these 11 champions, but all of their partners.Including their teammates here at the State Department.  Every awardee was nominated by American diplomats around the world, most of whom work side-by-side with all of our champions to advance our shared priorities.Take any goal of our foreign policy, anything that we really care about – expanding economic opportunity, empowering underserved communities, enhancing security, defending human rights – all of them are served by building more accountable institutions, more accountable societies, more transparency.So we have an abiding interest in rooting out corruption – both to improve lives in local communities and to build more prosperous, more secure, more rights-respecting partners for the American people.As we were looking at the awardees and learning from their stories, I think what’s powerful is you can really draw lessons from each of their work.  And I’ve seen, as we’ve been talking about this together, maybe five things that really jump out.  So let me share those with you in talking about the awardees.First, a key part of combatting corruption is working to reform corrupt institutions from within wherever possible.  That’s a very powerful thing.You heard reference to Veronica Mihailov-Moraru and what she’s done in the Republic of Moldova.  Having worked as a public defender, she knew firsthand how broken her country’s justice system was, but that didn’t stop her from working to overhaul the justice ministry when offered the chance to lead it.  That’s change from within.  Veronica designed and implemented a rigorous vetting process to root out corrupt judges, corrupt prosecutors; she helped reform the country’s anticorruption agencies.  She’s made a point of pursuing these reforms out in the open, not a secret, modeling the transparency she’s trying to foster, and that in turn has allowed her to build broad public support for this work.Vladimir Novovic made a similar leap when he left his post as a judge to become Montenegro’s chief prosecutor for organized crime, corruption, war crimes, terrorism, and money laundering.  That’s a portfolio.  He inherited an ineffective and an infiltrated institution, in a country where citizens were disillusioned by graft that they were experiencing every single day in their institutions.  By pursuing investigations of corrupt judges, of national security officials, senior police, Vladimir showed citizens that even the most powerful people are not above the law.  Since he took office, public trust in the corruption prosecutor’s office has doubled.As Liberia’s anti-corruption commissioner, Marc Kollie led a series of investigations that uncovered bribery of powerful politicians in exchange for favors.  Despite being threatened, Marc pursued his work.  He testified in the case, and then went on to lead other groundbreaking investigations, including one in which he froze bank accounts being used by organized crime to launder money.  His efforts demonstrated how a few committed individuals can turn government institutions from sources of corruption into sources of accountability.Second broad lesson that I’m drawing from our awardees:  When they’re informed, when they’re empowered, citizens – citizens – are our most effective anti-corruption allies.So Nikhil Dey has spent more than four decades in India working with and for those harmed by corruption, and those particularly who are harmed most by it: underserved, marginalized populations.  Nikhil has helped communities in Rajasthan demand access to essential services and rights – education, health care, fair wages, better working conditions.  His organization pioneered the practice of public audits, in which local officials have to report to communities how and where they spend the resources, and citizens have a chance themselves to ask probing questions of these officials.  As these public audits spread across India, more citizens started taking the lead in holding officials to account.  And that, at its heart, is how democracy needs to work.After decades of writing about corruption and organized crime for Ecuador’s newspapers, Arturo Torres founded an independent media site to report on these issues.  In a series of articles, Arturo and his team combined rigorous analysis of publicly available information with deep investigations to uncover the corrupt ties of candidates for judges, for mayors, and other important public offices.  In a country of 16 million people, the website’s reporting garnered 18 million views in just a couple of months – 16 million people in the country, 18 million views in a couple of months.  That showed the public hunger for this information and for the incredibly powerful role it can play in informing voters.Third, more than ever, if we’re going to address corruption effectively, we also have to address forces outside our countries that are looking to weaponize corruption for their gain.In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Jean-Claude Mputu has helped lead “Congo is Not for Sale.”  That’s a civil society coalition that uncovers the way mining deals have benefitted foreign companies, governments, and corrupt officials at the expense of the people.  By exposing the bribes that were used to win these contracts and the billions in lost revenue to the state, the investigations led the DRC Government to try to recover funds for the Congolese people, and has resulted in international sanctions against corrupt businesses and corrupt investors.In Timor-Leste, reporting by Francisco Belo Simoes da Costa showed the way a Beijing-based company used bribes to win a contract to digitize the country’s national television broadcast corporation.  Francisco uncovered the way a corrupt official profited by awarding the contract with no competition.  His reporting also showed the way the agreement would have allowed the Chinese Government to disseminate propaganda throughout the Timorese nation.  Francisco’s reporting prevented the tainted deal from going forward, it sparked an investigation by Timor-Leste’s anti-corruption commission, which is ongoing.For advocate Stanislau Ivashekvich, fighting for accountability, for transparency, for space for civil society in Belarus has long meant taking on the country – excuse me, he’s taking on the country working with Belarus’s dictator to try to quash it, and that is Russia.  Stanislau’s organization, the Belarus Investigative Center, has shone a spotlight on the ways that Russia and Belarus collaborate to try to evade sanctions, to enrich oligarchs, to fuel Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine.  His organization’s reporting has been critical to closing sanctions loopholes, seizing the illicit assets of Russian officials and oligarchs.Fourth broad lesson:  Every individual that we’re honoring today has made educating, inspiring, and mentoring young people a key part of their work.With Anette Plannells leading civil society campaigns resulting in the first-ever prosecution of high-ranking officials in Panama – even as she was doing that, she also helped build a youth wing of the nation’s anti-corruption movement.  Thanks to her trainings, thanks to her workshops, not only are countless Panamanians more engaged citizens, but scores of young people have now been inspired to pursue careers in advocacy and in elective office.  And so a whole new generation is coming up at the same time thanks to her work that she was engaged in, the work of the of the moment.As the Seychelles anti-corruption commissioner, May De Silva – you already heard reference to her before – has built an unprecedented case against businesses and former officials for international tax evasion.  At the same time, she’s designed and implemented seminars, conferences, workshops, an anti-corruption curriculum – all of this for students in schools and for colleges across the country.  She says her goal is to show how corruption eats away at societies, but also what every citizen can do to fight it.In Kyrgyzstan, Ali Toktakunov leads MediaHub.  This is an independent news outlet that exposes corruption and shows corrupt actors and how they’re using social media to try to hide, to obfuscate their crimes.  A key part of MediaHub’s efforts is building greater digital literacy among young people, something that they’re doing by holding workshops across the country’s universities, so that individuals are better prepared, better equipped to detect and call out online disinformation.Fifth and finally, every one of these champions – every one – has in some fashion been subject to repression, to threats, to persecution for their work.  Several had been forced into exile.  Many are subject to ongoing legal proceedings.  Some had been locked up.  Their families have also been threatened.  One of our awardees said that his small children can no longer play in public playgrounds and parks because of targeted threats.And yet, each and every one of them persists.  They continue to do the work.  As awardee Arturo Torres said, “It’s part of the job.”To all of today’s awardees, your bravery, your commitment to truth, to justice – it humbles us, it inspires us to do more, and it adds even greater urgency to the enduring effort to strengthen protections for advocates, for human rights defenders, for journalists, for educators around the world who are threatened and attacked for the work they’re doing to fight corruption and to better their societies.As you’ve heard from Under Secretary Zeya, Assistant Secretary Robinson, this has been a top priority for President Biden, for this administration, for this department from day one.  We’ll keep working to build effective ways to have the backs of those who are at risk and to hold perpetrators to account.I know that there are folks watching today who are leading hard fights for transparency and good governance in hard places.  And I know there have to be days when you feel disillusioned, when you feel isolated, when you feel fearful.So I hope, if nothing else, you’ll take heart from today, you’ll take heart from the stories of your colleagues around the world who are doing such remarkable work in the ways that you are – doing it a great cost, at great risk, but doing it.And I hope that today’s ceremony reminds us that, again, the actions of determined individuals can make a difference, are making a difference.  They can puncture the seemingly impenetrable walls of impunity.  They can rekindle citizens’ faith in their own capacity to make governments and institutions work for them.Indeed, they and you are often the only way that change effectively happens.To all the anti-corruption champions far beyond this room, please know you have a partner in the United States.With that, it is my honor to give the floor to one of our awardees so deserving who can speak most effectively for all of our awardees, Minister Mihailov-Moraru.Minister, congratulations.  The floor is yours.  (Applause.)JUSTICE MINISTER MIHAILOV-MORARU:  Good morning.  Honorable Secretary Blinken, colleagues and new friends, ladies and gentlemen, I am very honored to be with you here and be among of this group of all about – with all remarkable activists, journalists, and public officials you have brought together from all around the world.  Thank you very much for all the appreciation.  I am not sure I actually deserve this recognition or to be in the company of this inspiring group of people, but I am very grateful for the honor and I will use it as a reminder and motivation when I need it to persist and to press forward against the resistance we encounter every day in fighting corruption in Moldova and around all the world.The Republic of Moldova is currently undergoing broad reform in its justice sector, addressing challenges relating to integrity, accessibility, efficiency, and widespread lack of trust.  Corruption remains, unfortunately, a central obstacle to the formation of trust in government in Moldova.  But one of our main goals in my country is to improve living standards, to change society’s perception of the independence of the judicial system in order to ensure transparency, but also their responsibility, and ultimately to increase trust in the acts of justice.  And this can only be happen by fighting everywhere and with increasing success against corruption.Corruption, of course, is not unique to Moldova.  It is a global problem that affects us all.  Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gains, and it undermines the rule of law, the legitimacy of government, and the trust of citizens.  Corruption is a threat to the realization of the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to create a better and more sustainable future for all.But I am sure that corruption is not inevitable.  It can be prevented and combated through effective anti-corruption policies, practices, and a lot of courage.  Anti-corruption efforts vary in scope and strategy and include both preventive and reactive measures – preventive measures to reduce the opportunities for – of corruption actions, but reactive measures – detect, investigate, prosecute, and sanction corruption and return stolen assets.In Moldova, we have committed to implement de-oligarchization measures to eliminate excessive influence of powerful and at times dangerous vested interest in economic, political, and public life.  We have taken action to fortify our agencies charged with responsibility for investigation and prosecution of high corruption act cases.  We have modernized our legislation for combating money laundering and terrorism financing, and also we are in the process to improve our asset recovery mechanism.But this is only the beginning, and we in Moldova cannot do this alone, of course.  None of us can.  So we are committed to increasing our mutual legal cooperation, including on financial investigations, international and organized crime cases, to identify and to recover criminal assets.  But we also need, as do anti-corruption fighters in every country, the commitment and collaboration of all stakeholders, including the international community, the private sector, civil society, journalists, and academia.So I really believe that every effort counts.  Only together we can make a difference and create a more transparent, accountable, and inclusive society for ourselves and for future generations.During IVLP meetings throughout this week, I was inspired by some quotes.  Finding and fighting corruption – your anti-corruption fight is our fight.  And I want to thank to the American people for the inspiration and all the support toward rule of law.Let me please on behalf of all the IVLP group to receive our gratitude to all of you for your attention, and for the honor you bestow, and the kindness, and the continuing support you have shown to all of us.  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)
- Signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on the Development of the Lobito Corridor and the Zambia-Lobito Rail Line Office of the SpokespersonToday the African Development Bank and Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) join the United States and the European Union in support of Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zambia to develop the Lobito Corridor and the new Zambia-Lobito rail line by signing a seven-side Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), on the margins of the Global Gateway Forum in Brussels, Belgium.The MoU outlines the intentions of the signatories to collaborate across multiple sectors to realize the full economic potential of the Corridor, building on the Lobito Corridor Transit Transport Facilitation Agency agreement signed by the three African governments in January and anchored by historic, envisioned investment in developing the Zambia-Lobito greenfield rail line. The new rail line, connecting northwest Zambia to the Lobito Atlantic Railway and the port of Lobito, represents the most significant transport infrastructure that the United States has helped develop on the African continent in a generation and will enhance regional trade and growth as well as advance the shared vision of connected, open-access rail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean.Demonstrating the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI) in action and leveraging both Western and African capital, this strategic transport infrastructure unlocks regional trade and enables additional investments in digital connectivity, agriculture value chains, green energy supply chains and rural health center electrification, among other transformative economic imperatives.At the signing, the United States was represented by Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Investment Amos Hochstein, the European Union was represented by Commissioner for International Partnerships Jutta Urpilainen, Angola was represented by Minister of State for Economic Coordination José de Lima Massano, the Democratic Republic of the Congo was represented by Prime Minister Jean-Michel Lukonde, Zambia was represented by Minister of Finance and National Planning Situmbeko Musokotwane, the African Development Bank was represented by Vice President Solomon Quaynor, and the Africa Finance Corporation was represented by Board Member and Head of Financial Services Sanjeev Gupta.As a signature initiative of President Biden, PGI aims to offer a credible alternative to low- and middle-income countries around the world to help meet their infrastructure needs. Developing a significant new multi-country transport infrastructure project that follows the highest international standards regarding labor, environment and quality is the centerpiece of PGI’s flagship economic development corridor. Following the MoU, AFC will work with the parties to launch the feasibility and preparatory studies necessary to further prepare this extensive infrastructure project—a critical concrete action step aimed to begin before the end of the year.&nbsp;
- Republic of the Congo HomeReportsBureau of Economic and Business Affairs2023 Investment Climate Statements&#8230;Republic of the Congo				hide	document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {	if(window.jQuery) {		jQuery( document ).ready(function() {			if (jQuery(".bc_middle").hasClass("collapse")) {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});				jQuery(".bc_hide").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});			} else {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").hide();			}		});	}});																							2023 Investment Climate Statements: Republic of the Congo																																																																																												 In this section										/																							EXECUTIVE SUMMARY																																													EXECUTIVE SUMMARY																															1. Openness To, and Restrictions Upon, Foreign Investment																																																									Policies Towards Foreign Direct Investment																																																																											Limits on Foreign Control and Right to Private Ownership and Establishment																																																																											Other Investment Policy Reviews																																																																											Business Facilitation																																																																											Outward Investment																																																																																	2. Bilateral Investment and Taxation Treaties																															3. Legal Regime																																																									Transparency of the Regulatory System																																																																											International Regulatory Considerations																																																																											Legal System and Judicial Independence																																																																											Laws and Regulations on Foreign Direct Investment																																																																											Competition and Antitrust Laws																																																																											Expropriation and Compensation																																																																											Dispute Settlement																																																																			ICSID Convention and New York Convention																																																								Investor-State Dispute Settlement																																																								International Commercial Arbitration and Foreign Courts																																																																																																																		Bankruptcy Regulations																																																																																	4. Industrial Policies																																																									Investment Incentives																																																																											Foreign Trade Zones/Free Ports/Trade Facilitation																																																																											Performance and Data Localization Requirements																																																																																	5. Protection of Property Rights																																																									Real Property																																																																											Intellectual Property Rights																																																																																	6. Financial Sector																																																									Capital Markets and Portfolio Investment																																																																											Money and Banking System																																																																											Foreign Exchange and Remittances																																																																			Foreign Exchange																																																								Remittance Policies																																																																																																																		Sovereign Wealth Funds																																																																																	7. State-Owned Enterprises																																																									Privatization Program																																																																																	8. Responsible Business Conduct																																																									Additional Resources																																																																											Climate Issues																																																																																	9. Corruption																																																									Resources to Report Corruption																																																																																	10. Political and Security Environment																															11. Labor Policies and Practices																															12. U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and Other Investment Insurance or Development Finance Programs																															13. Foreign Direct Investment Statistics																															14. Contact for More Information																																																					EXECUTIVE SUMMARY				The Republic of the Congo (ROC) struggled with effects of the sustained economic crisis caused by the 2014 drop in oil prices. Poor governance and a lack of economic diversification pushed the ROC government to near insolvency, reduced its creditworthiness, and forced the central bank to expend significant foreign currency reserves. Despite some progress since 2014, there are still challenges with government liquid currency reserves and the economy has remained in general decline. More recently the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine war have caused high inflation and spurred challenges to the government’s ability to maintain normal subsidies for critical products like bread, sugar, and fuel. Despite higher crude oil prices, the government is still importing more refined oil than it produces, increasing the burden of their decades long fuel subsidy on government coffers. In the ROC, inflation, and food prices in particular, soared to record highs due to Ukraine war. Most of the population is affected by food price inflation (as over 80 percent of consumables are imported) and global supply chain issues. These economic challenges come at a time when ROC’s ability to support growth and protect poor households is severely constrained. The government has made moves to price-control certain imported consumables to attempt to regulate prices.The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Bank of Central African States (BEAC), and the ROC government project gross domestic product (GDP) increase of 3.6 percent in2023, up from 2.3 percent in 2022.Oil represents the largest sector of the economy and contributes upwards of 60 percent of the government’s annual declared revenue. The non-oil sectors are primarily logging, telecommunications, banking, construction, and agriculture. ROC has resources for economic diversification, with vast swaths of arable land, some of the largest iron ore and potash deposits in the world, a heavily forested land mass, and a deep-water International Ship and Port Facility Security Code-certified port. ROC has been eligible for U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act trade preferences since October 2000, providing incentives for export-related investment. ROC also participates in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC).ROC has made significant investments in recent years in its infrastructure, including completing paved roads linking Brazzaville to the commercial capital of Pointe-Noire and other districts. Significant challenges remain, including ROC’s nascent, but improving, internet and inconsistent supplies of electricity and water, which present both hurdles to and opportunities for foreign direct investment. Significant sections of the country’s road system need maintenance or paving. The limited railroad network competes with truck and bus traffic for commercial cargo and limits mining sector development. However, the government reports spending significant amounts on infrastructure improvements.Investors report that the commercial environment in ROC has not improved substantially in recent years. ROC ranked 164 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index. American businesses operating in ROC and those considering establishing a presence regularly report obstacles linked to corruption, lack of transparency, and host government inefficiency in matters such as registering businesses, obtaining land titles, paying taxes, paying subsidies, and negotiating natural resource contracts.&nbsp;Table 1: Key Metrics and RankingsMeasure Year Index/Rank Website AddressTI Corruption Perceptions Index 2022 164 of 180 http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview  Global Innovation Index 2022 N/A https://www.globalinnovationindex.org/analysis-indicator  U.S. FDI in partner country ($M USD, historical stock positions) 2022N/A https://apps.bea.gov/international/factsheet World Bank GNI per capita 2021 USD 1,970 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD  																																					1. Openness To, and Restrictions Upon, Foreign Investment						    																																																Policies Towards Foreign Direct Investment										A. The ROC government welcomes FDI in most sectors, particularly in the oil sector, which accounts for 90 percent of FDI inflows. The government has communicated an urgent need to attract investment outside of the petroleum sector in official statements and direct conversations.B. No known laws or practices discriminate against foreign investors, including U.S. investors, by prohibiting, limiting, or conditioning foreign investment in any sector of the economy. The United States and ROC signed an investment agreement in 1994.C. ROC’s Agency for the Promotion of Investments (API), established in 2013, promotes economic diversification by seeking to expand the pool of external investors. API provides French-language advisory services to potential investors and maintains a database of government projects seeking private investor partners.D. The government has made no significant efforts to retain foreign investments or to maintain dialogue with investors despite increased attempts to sign MOUs with new investors. The High Committee for Public-Private Dialogue, established in 2012, convened a meeting chaired by the prime minister in February 2023.																																				Limits on Foreign Control and Right to Private Ownership and Establishment										A. Foreign and domestic private entities have the right to establish and own business enterprises and engage in all forms of remunerative activity. There was no significant change since the last ICS.B. ROC has no known limits on foreign ownership or control.C. Foreign business entities investing in the petroleum sector must pursue a joint venture with the Congolese National Petroleum Company (SNPC). An ROC executive order from November 15, 2019 requires foreign companies in the hydrocarbons sector to employ Congolese in 80 percent of management positions and 90 percent of all employee positions. All forestry companies, both foreign and locally owned, are required by law to process 100 percent of their timber domestically and export it as transformed wood products rather than raw timber. A January 2023 directive that was taken in conjunction with the Forest Law passed in 2021 prevents companies from exporting natural timber. In practice, however, some companies obtained an exemption to export raw timber. Green business investors have been required to include Ministry of Forest Economy staff in their advisory boards, but this has been an ad hoc requirement rather than legislated requirement.D. ROC has no formal investment screening mechanism for inbound foreign investment.																																				Other Investment Policy Reviews										A. The government has not undertaken any third-party investment policy reviews in the past five years.B. No civil society organization provided useful reviews of investment policy-related concerns in the past five years.																																				Business Facilitation										A. The ROC Agency for Business Creation, (French acronym ACPCE), serves as a “one-stop shop” for establishing a business. ACPCE has offices in Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire, N’kayi, Ouesso, and Dolisie. To establish a business in ROC, investors must provide ACPCE with two copies of the company by-laws, two copies of capitalization documents (e.g. a bank letter or an affidavit), a copy of the company’s investment strategy, company-approved financial statements (if available), and ownership documents or lease agreements for the company’s offices in ROC.B. The ACPCE has a website,  http://dgpme.cg/acpce.php  which serves as an information-only website. Business registration cannot be completed through the website. A new business needs to formally register with the business registry, the tax administration, and the national social security company to start a fully functional business. The business registration process takes from 4 to 12 weeks normally.																																				Outward Investment										A. The ROC government does not promote or incentivize outward investment.B. The ROC government does not restrict domestic investors from investing abroad.																																												2. Bilateral Investment and Taxation Treaties						    																						A. On February 12, 1990, ROC signed a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) with the United States. The treaty entered into force on August 13, 1994. ROC also maintains BITs in force with France, China, Germany, Italy, Republic of Korea, Mauritius, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. ROC has fiscal agreements with the other member states of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community. Several African nations have signed commercial and bilateral agreements with ROC to safeguard investments, including South Africa in 2005 and Namibia in 2007.B. ROC is a member of the OECD Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting. ROC does not have stand-alone bilateral taxation treaties with any country. Some of ROC’s bilateral investment agreements, such as with the United States and France, include taxation provisions to avoid double taxation. Tax authorities generally do not enforce these provisions. Companies have reported issues recovering value added taxes from the ROC government.																																		3. Legal Regime						    																																																Transparency of the Regulatory System										A. Lack of transparency poses one of the greatest hurdles to FDI, as investors must navigate an opaque regulatory bureaucracy. Companies routinely find themselves embroiled in tax, customs, and labor disputes arbitrated by court officials who make decisions that do not conform with Congolese law and ROC Ministry of Justice regulations.B. ROC has no known informal regulatory processes managed by nongovernmental organizations or private sector associations.C. The government develops new regulations internally and rarely requests formal input from industry representatives. Various ministries have regulatory authority over the individual industries in their area of responsibility, with overall authority coordinated by the Ministry of Economy. The government does not usually offer a formal, public-comment period.D. ROC’s base for accounting, legal, and regulatory frameworks are transparent though there are challenges in practice. ROC uses Francophone Africa’s Organization for Business Law Harmonization (French acronym OHADA) system of accounting, legal, and regulatory procedures. Most companies listed on the common exchange of Central Africa States use OHADA type accounting system.E. The government does not promote or require companies’ environmental, social, and governance disclosure to facilitate transparency and/or help investors and consumers distinguish between high and low-quality investments.F. The government does not normally make draft bills or regulations available for public comment. The government publishes new laws and regulations in ROC’s Official Journal.G. The Official Journal is available for download at the website of the Secretary General of the Government who maintains the Official Journal online at  http://www.sgg.cg  .H. Most government ministries have an inspector general that conduct oversight to ensure that government agencies follow administrative processes. The Office of the President has an inspector general who oversees the entire government.I. The government announced no new regulatory systems, including enforcement reforms, during the reporting period.J. No new reforms were made in the reporting period.K. The inspector general process is not legally reviewable, digitalized, nor accountable to the public.L. The government publishes some public finances and debt obligations, including explicit and contingent liabilities. The Ministry of Finance publishes the arrangements on its website,  https://www.finances.gouv.cg/ .																																				International Regulatory Considerations										A. ROC is a member of the Economic Community of Central African States (French acronym CEEAC), a regional economic cooperation community, and of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (French acronym CEMAC), a monetary union of six Central African states. These regional economic organizations control much of the national economic and finance regulatory system.B. ROC’s regulatory system for business disputes and regulations governing company registration structure and incorporation incorporates Francophone African regulatory norms promulgated by Organization for the Harmonization of African Business Rights (OHADA).C. ROC participates as a member country of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The government did not provide information as to whether it notifies the WTO Committee of all draft regulations relating to Technical Barriers to Trade. ROC signed the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement but has not begun implementing the agreement.																																				Legal System and Judicial Independence										A. The French civil law legal system serves as the basis of the Congolese legal system. Contracts are enforced by referring to the commercial court system.B. OHADA provides the basis for ROC’s national commercial law, supplemented by ROC-specific provisions, such as requiring companies to register with the commercial courts. A commercial court exists in ROC but has not convened since 2016.C. The judicial system remains independent in principle, however, in practice, the executive branch intervenes in the judicial system on an ad hoc basis. According to sources, the judicial process is procedurally competent, but its fairness and the reliability of judgments and applications of the legal code are questionable.D. Appellate courts exist and receive appeals of enforcement actions. Public Law 6-2003, which established the country’s Investment Charter, states that Congolese law will resolve investment disputes. Judgments of foreign courts are difficult to enforce in ROC. Though the government does not usually deny foreign court judgments outright, it may propose process or procedural delays that prolong matters indefinitely without resolution.																																				Laws and Regulations on Foreign Direct Investment										A. ROC’s commercial court has authority over any legal disputes involving foreign investors. Investors may also file legal complaints in the OHADA court – based in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire – which has jurisdiction throughout Francophone Africa. ROC’s Hydrocarbons Law and Mining Code of 2016 contain industry-specific regulations for foreign investments.B. The government published no substantive changes to laws, regulations, or judicial decisions related to foreign investment during the reporting period.C. The ROC Agency for Business Creation ACPCE is the first stop for establishing a business. Its website has limited information about laws, rules, and reporting requirements:  http://dgpme.cg/acpce.php  .																																				Competition and Antitrust Laws										A. No agencies review transactions for competition-related concerns, either domestic or international in nature. Ministries in general monitor individual industries and review industry-related transactions.B. Not applicable. No significant competition cases occurred in the Republic of the Congo during the reporting period.C. Not applicable. The Republic of the Congo has no agencies that review transactions for competition-related concerns.D. Not applicable. The Republic of the Congo has no agencies that review transactions for competition-related concerns.																																				Expropriation and Compensation										A. The ROC government may legally expropriate property if it finds a public need for a given public facility or infrastructure (e.g. roads, hospitals, etc.).B. No recent history of expropriation regarding private companies exists. Historically, however, the ROC government has expropriated private property from Congolese citizens to build roads and stadiums. Law entitles the claimants to a fair market value compensation, but the government distributed such compensation inconsistently and many citizens remain unpaid years after the projects.C. Beginning in 2012, the ROC government expropriated land of Congolese private property owners in the Kintele suburb of Brazzaville to build a state-of-the-art sports complex for the 2015 African Games. The government offered minimal compensation to property owners. At the time, citizens publicly complained of a lack of legal recourse against the government for on-payment of debts.D. The government has not taken any measures alleged to be indirect expropriations such as confiscatory tax regimes or regulatory actions that deprive investors of substantial economic benefits from their investments during the reporting period.																																				Dispute Settlement																										ICSID Convention and New York Convention						A. ROC is a party to the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (ICSID). The ROC government has yet to ratify the New York Convention of 1958 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards.B. There is no specific domestic legislation providing for enforcement of awards under the ICSID Convention.						Investor-State Dispute Settlement						A. ROC is a member of OHADA, which includes binding international arbitration of investment disputes.B. ROC has a bilateral investment treaty with the United States that includes an investment chapter. There are no recent claims under the agreement by U.S. investors.C. There have been two investment disputes involving non-local entities in the past ten years. In one, a U.S. company successfully negotiated a settlement with ROC authorities after filing suit in a New York district court. In the second, a non-U.S. company successfully sued ROC in U.S. and French courts over non-payment for goods and services, however, the ROC government refused to recognize the judgements, counter suing in the same courts alleging corruption within the arbitrators. Congolese courts subsequently issued their own judgements in favor of the ROC government. The ROC government no longer responds to attempts by the company or intermediaries to engage on this dispute.D. Local courts have rarely recognized and enforced foreign arbitral awards issued against the government.E. There is no known history of extrajudicial action against foreign investors.						International Commercial Arbitration and Foreign Courts						A. There is no known alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanism available in ROC. ROC inconsistently abides by international arbitration for any treaty, international convention, or organization of which it is a member. In practice, arbitrary judgments are difficult to enforce.B. Commercial courts constitute the domestic arbitration body within the country. The commercial court legislation and structure is based on French commercial legislation and structure.C. Local courts inconsistently recognize and enforce foreign arbitral awards. ROC law recognizes foreign judgments when the relevant laws appear sufficiently like Congolese law. Congolese courts have not accepted any foreign arbitral awards in recent memory.D. There are no known investment disputes involving state owned enterprises.																										Bankruptcy Regulations										A. ROC has no specific law that governs bankruptcy. As a member of OHADA, ROC applies OHADA bankruptcy provisions in the event of corporate or individual insolvency. No laws criminalize bankruptcy. ROC does not have a credit bureau or other credit monitoring authority serving the country’s market.																																												4. Industrial Policies						    																																																Investment Incentives										A. ROC’s Ministry of Industrial Development and Promotion of the Private Sector had overall responsibility for investment promotion until May 2021 when the Presidency created a new Ministry for International Cooperation and Public Private Partnerships; the boundaries between the two as to whom promotes investment remains vague in principle and in practice. When a potential investor believes its investment will bring substantial investment and job creation to the Congolese economy, it may apply for preferential tax and customs treatment through the Ministry of Finance’s National Committee on Investments. The Minister of Finance chairs this committee, which includes the Minister of Economy and Industrial Development, the Minister of Planning, and the Minister of Budget. The committee reviews applications annually.Presidential decree No. 2004-30 of February 18, 2004, defines the requirements for foreign and national companies to benefit from incentives offered by the Congolese Investment Charter. The decree promulgates four types of incentives:(1)Incentives to export;(2)Incentives to reinvest the company’s profit in ROC; (3)Incentives for businesses in remote areas or areas that are difficult to access; and (4)Incentives for social and cultural investment.Examples of incentives include reduced or exempted taxes below the corporate tax rate of 30 percent; reduced customs duties over a period of five to 10 years; a 50 percent reduction in business registration fees; and an accelerated depreciation mechanism. For companies owned at least 25 percent by domestic entities, other incentives include a reduced dividend tax rate of 10 percent, capital gains tax reductions, deductions for business expenditures, reduced rents, and deductible remunerations. Businesses may negotiate other incentives during the incorporation process.B. The government does not have a practice of issuing guarantees or jointly financing foreign direct investment projects.C. The government has yet to offer any incentives, such as feed-in tariffs, discounts on electricity rates, or tax incentives for clean energy investments.																																				Foreign Trade Zones/Free Ports/Trade Facilitation										A. The ROC government has named four special economic zones (SEZs): in the main economic hub of Pointe-Noire, the capital Brazzaville, and the cities of Ouesso and Oyo. ROC signed memoranda of understanding with the Governments of Mauritius, Singapore, and the People’s Republic of China to advise on the development of the SEZs. The government expressed a desire to attract U.S. investment to the SEZs. In 2022 Ministry of International Cooperation and Public Private Partnerships signed an MOU with a Rwandan company to develop the Brazzaville SEZ. Little to no activity has developed in any SEZ, and no known timeline exists to render the SEZs operational.																																				Performance and Data Localization Requirements										A. Major foreign direct investment must demonstrate an economic windfall for the local community (e.g. increased local employment) for approval of an investment agreement from the National Committee on Investment to receive tax and investment benefits. ROC’s labor code requires the top manager of all companies to be a Congolese national. The government frequently waives this requirement for multinational companies.B. No known performance requirements exist for foreign or local companies. No known restrictions apply to U.S. or other foreign firms&#8217; participation in ROC government-financed or subsidized research and development programs.C. No known procedures for performance requirements exist in the Republic of the Congo. When a potential investor believes its investment will bring substantial investment and job creation to the Congolese economy, it may apply for preferential tax and customs treatment by applying to the Ministry of Finance’s National Committee on Investments.D. No requirements for foreign information technology providers exist to provide source code and/or access to encryption.E. No known measures prevent companies from transmitting customer or other business data outside of the country.F. No known rules require local data storage.																																												5. Protection of Property Rights						    																																																Real Property										A. Government regulations protect property rights and interests, though companies and individuals cite inconsistent enforcement. Mortgages and liens exist. The recording system is generally reliable.B. No known specific regulations regarding land lease or acquisition by foreign investors exist.C. The government has no definitive registry of untitled land. There are ongoing efforts by the government to push property owners to register land titles.D. Property ownership can transfer to other owners if the property remains unoccupied for 10 consecutive years while having been simultaneously occupied by another user (squatter).																																				Intellectual Property Rights										A. As a member of CEMAC, the ROC participates in the African Intellectual Property Organization (French acronym OAPI). OAPI manages a single copyright system for all member states. Additionally, as a member of the WTO, ROC is obligated to ensure that intellectual property (IP) legislation conforms to WTO norms and standards. The Ministry of Commerce leads issues related to counterfeit products. Local authorities have historically seized and destroyed contraband items, such as counterfeit medical supplies and black-market food products. Determining the extent of IP infringement is challenging because the ROC maintains no formal system of tracking and reporting seizures of counterfeit goods. Additionally, the ROC government reportedly uses unlicensed software on its computers. The legal structure is fair, but the enforcement is inconsistent.B. The government has not enacted any new IP-related laws or regulations in the past year.C. Local authorities have historically seized and destroyed contraband items but determining the extent of IP infringement is challenging because the ROC maintains no formal system of tracking and reporting seizures of counterfeit goods, nor do they often prosecute.D. ROC is not listed in USTR’s Special 301 Report.E. ROC is not listed in the Notorious Markets List.For additional information about national laws and points of contact at local IP offices, please see WIPO’s country profiles at  http://www.wipo.int/directory/en/. 																																												6. Financial Sector						    																																																Capital Markets and Portfolio Investment										A. The ROC government maintains a neutral attitude toward foreign portfolio investment and does not widely practice foreign portfolio investment.B. ROC does not have a national stock exchange. ROC-based companies may seek regional listing on the Douala Stock Exchange, which merged with the CEMAC Zone Stock Exchange. BEAC puts in place a regulatory system to encourage and facilitate portfolio investment.C. The government and Central Bank respect IMF Article VIII in principle, however, within the last year the BEAC imposed limits on international payments and transfers. Mining and oil companies especially expressed concerns about the new restrictions.D. The BEAC monitors credits and market terms. Foreign investors can obtain credit on the local market so long as they have a locally registered company. ROC, however, offers only a limited range of credit instruments.																																				Money and Banking System										A. Banking penetration is estimated at 10- to 12-percent. High intermediation costs and high collateral requirements limit the pool of customers. Microfinance banks and mobile banking remain the fastest growth areas in the banking sector.B. The global COVID-19 economic crisis and the government’s consecutive years of fiscal deficits strained the banking sector over the past five years. Overall loan default is around 20 percent in the reporting period due to strained economic conditions.C. Non-performing loans amount to approximately 20 percent in 2022.D. The ROC’s largest banks is BGFI Congo with estimated total assets of about $200 million in 2021. Fiscal transparency issues limit any estimate of the total assets controlled by ROC’s largest banks. The assets of the largest banks decreased in recent years because of the economic crisis.E. ROC participates in the CEMAC zone and the BEAC system. BEAC’s regulatory body, the Banking Commission of Central Africa (French acronym COBAC), supervises the Congolese banking sector.F. Foreign banks and branches may operate in ROC and constitute the majority of banking operations in ROC. BEAC banking regulations govern foreign and domestic banks in ROC. No banks have left ROC in the past fifteen years.G. No known restrictions exist on a foreigner’s ability to establish a bank account.																																				Foreign Exchange and Remittances																										Foreign Exchange						A. In January 2022, the BEAC implemented new restrictions on international payments and fund transfers after a two-years grace period, negatively affecting foreign exchange. CEMAC regulations require banks to record and report the identity of customers engaging in transactions valued over $10,000. The BEAC recently began monitoring fund transfers larger than $100,000 more closely.B. New BEAC restrictions create difficulties obtaining foreign currencies from commercial banks. No U.S.-based banks operate in ROC but transfers directly to and from the United States are technically possible.C. ROC and other CEMAC member states use the Central African CFA Franc (FCFA, sometimes abbreviated XAF) as a common currency. The CFA is pegged to the Euro as an intervention monetary unit at a fixed exchange rate of 1 Euro: 655.957 CFA Franc.						Remittance Policies						A. In 2019, the BEAC imposed new restrictions on international payments and transfers that have negatively affected remittances. A two-years grace period was issued which effectively ended in December 2022.B. In June 2019, the BEAC issued several standard operating procedures to implement international payment and transfer as well as currency exchange controls. Since the implementation of these regulations, the average waiting period for any fund transfer was 10 days in 2021.																										Sovereign Wealth Funds										A. GROC maintains no formal Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF). An ROC law legalized the framework to establish an SWF in 2016 at the BEAC, intending to open ROC to mostly risk-free foreign assets. The SWF has yet to be established.B. GROC maintains no formal Sovereign Wealth FundC. GROC maintains no formal Sovereign Wealth Fund.																																												7. State-Owned Enterprises						    																						A. As a former people’s republic, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) dominated the Congolese economy in the 1970s and 1980s. The number of SOEs is comparatively smaller now, following a wave of privatization in the 1990s. The national oil company (SNPC), electricity company (E2C), and water supply company (LCDE) constitute the largest remaining SOEs. SOEs report to their respective ministries. The SOEs historically included members of government on their boards, but SNPC (the largest SOE), had to restructure its governing boards in 2022 to remove government members serving in the Ministry of Hydrocarbons under pressure from the IMF. In practice, government and SOE ties remain strong.B. The government publishes no official list of SOEs.C. Constraints on SOEs operating in the non-oil sector appear to monitor sufficiently and are subject to civil society and media scrutiny. The operations of SNPC, however, continue to be opaque. SOEs must publish annual reports subject to examination by the government’s supreme audit institution. In practice, these examinations do not always occur.Private companies may compete with public companies and have in some cases won contracts sought by SOEs. Government budget constraints limit SOE’s operations.D. SOEs do not generally operate in sectors within the domestic market that are open to standard competition, instead they operate in sectors that are either sensitive for national security reasons or offer critical social services like electricity, water, and oil. Most of those SOEs in the domestic market provide services or sale goods that are heavily subsidized by the government.E. To Post’s knowledge, SOEs competing in the domestic marketplace are not competing internationally.F. The ROC has not adhered to the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance for SOEs.																										Privatization Program										A. ROC has no known privatization programs.B. ROC has no known privatization programs.C. ROC has no known privatization programs.																																												8. Responsible Business Conduct						    																						A. There is a general awareness of expectations of responsible business conduct. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) remains a well-known concept in ROC in terms of responsible business conduct practice that local communities view favorably. Foreign oil companies constitute the primary CSR actors. Telecommunications and transportation companies and banks have increasingly supported CSR initiatives to improve their public image. The government utilizes CSR contributions to help finance hospitals, education, nutrition programs, and road construction.B. The government has not instituted or proposed requirements for business to conduct due diligence or reporting regarding responsible business conduct issues. The government encourages responsible business conduct by partnering with or endorsing companies’ CSR initiatives that have high social impact. RBC policies do not factor significantly into government procurement decisions.C. The government of the Republic of the Congo has not taken any measures to proactively encourage responsible business conduct such as promoting the OECD guidelines, the UNGPs, and/or initiatives that implement the UNGPs in specific sectors.D. There are no significant known or alleged human or labor rights concerns relating to RBC that foreign businesses should be aware of.E. No known high-profile, controversial instances of private sector entities negatively impacting human rights exist.F. The GROC inconsistently enforces domestic laws related to human rights, labor rights, consumer protection, environmental protections, and commerce.G. No known corporate governance, accounting, or executive compensation standards exist to protect shareholders.H. No independent NGOs, investment funds, worker organizations/unions, or business associations specifically promote or monitor RBC practices. Civil society groups promote individual matters of interest on a case-by-case basis.I. ROC does not adhere to the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Afflicted and High-Risk Areas. No domestic measures require supply chain due diligence for companies that source minerals that may originate from conflict-affected areas.J. ROC participates in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Their latest published reports is from 2020. No domestic transparency measures require the disclosure of payments made to the government and/or of RBC policies or practices.K. ROC has a small private security industry. However, the use of private security companies is more widespread for private companies and well-off individuals rather than for the formation of private militaries. There is no evidence of foreign Private Military Contractors operating in any significant number in ROC. ROC is not signatory of The Montreux Document on Private Military and Security Companies, and/or a supporter of the International Code of Conduct or Private Security Service Providers, and/or a participant in the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers&#8217; Association (ICoCA).																										Additional Resources										Department of StateCountry Reports on Human Rights Practices ( https://www.state.gov/reports-bureau-of-democracy-human-rights-and-labor/country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/)Trafficking in Persons Report ( https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/)Guidance on Implementing the &#8220;UN Guiding Principles&#8221; for Transactions Linked to Foreign Government End-Users for Products or Services with Surveillance Capabilities ( https://www.state.gov/key-topics-bureau-of-democracy-human-rights-and-labor/due-diligence-guidance/)U.S. National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises ( https://www.state.gov/u-s-national-contact-point-for-the-oecd-guidelines-for-multinational-enterprises/)Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory ( https://www.state.gov/xinjiang-supply-chain-business-advisory/)Department of the TreasuryOFAC Recent Actions ( https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/recent-actions )Department of LaborFindings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor Report ( https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/resources/reports/child-labor/findings  )List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor ( https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods )Sweat &amp; Toil: Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking Around the World ( https://www.dol.gov/general/apps/ilab )Comply Chain ( https://www.dol.gov/ilab/complychain/ )																																				Climate Issues										A. The GROC does have a national development plan specifically for forest land management and environmental protection that ties these activities to climate change. The government also adopted an adaptation plan that specifically focuses efforts on limiting deforestation, the creation of a green economy, and additional environmental policies.B. The GROC has no known policy to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, because ROC is currently absorbing more carbon than it emits.C. The GROC does have a national development plan specifically for forest land management and environmental protection that ties these activities to climate change. Ministry of Environment representatives have expressed strong interest in selling carbon credits and bristle at lack of international support for this idea. There has been some discontent with the current market price for carbon credits on private markets for relevant government representatives.D. The GROC has no known regulatory incentives to achieve policy outcomes that preserve biodiversity, clean air, or other desirable ecological benefit. The Ministry of Forest Economy shares it is currently working on regulatory incentives in this field, but without a projected completion date.E. In January 2023 the government banned the practice of exporting raw timber out of the CEMAC region, entering into force older regional legislation, requiring all exports to be finished milled lumber. This is meant to target illegal logging. However, enforcement is new and raw timber is still being harvested and shipped internationally. This measure will have less impact on established logging companies that have been complying with the law since 2021 requiring that they process wood in-country with a very low threshold of raw lumber allowed for export. It is meant, however, to impact companies logging illegally or logging on legal concessions without regard for the raw timber limits.F. Known public procurement policies include environmental and green growth considerations such as resource efficiency, pollution abatement, and climate resilience. However, implementation and enforcement capacity are lacking.																																												9. Corruption						    																						 ROC adopted a law against corruption by public officials, “Code de Transparence dans les Finances Publiques,” on March 9, 2017.  It also adopted another comprehensive law against corruption, “Prévention et Lutte contre la Corruption et les Infractions Assimilées” on January 24, 2022. The ROC government inconsistently enforces both laws.  The corruption laws apply to elected and appointed officials.  It does not extend to family members of officials or to political parties.No specific laws or regulations address conflict-of-interest in awarding contracts or government procurement. ROC does not encourage or require private companies to establish internal codes of conduct that prohibit bribery of public officials. Some private companies, particularly multinationals, use internal controls, ethics, and compliance programs to detect and prevent bribery of government officials. ROC serves as a party to the UN Anticorruption Convention. ROC does not provide protection to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) investigating corruption.  NGOs report that government corruption results in self-censoring of reporting and investigations into corruption.   U.S. firms routinely cite corruption as an impediment to investment, particularly in the petroleum sector. Corruption can be found in nearly all sectors including government procurement, award of licenses or concessions, transfers, performance requirements, dispute settlement, regulatory systems, customs, and taxation. 																										Resources to Report Corruption										Contact at the government agency or agencies that are responsible for combating corruption:Emmanuel Ollita OndongoPrésidentHaute Autorité de Lutte contre la Corruption (HALC)Centre Ville, Brazzaville, République du Congo+242 06 944 6165 or +242 05 551 2229emmallita2007@yahoo.frContact at a &#8220;watchdog&#8221; organization:Christian MounzeoPrésidentRencontre pour la Paix et les Droits de l’Homme (RPDH, the local chapter of “Publish What You Pay” – Publiez Ce Que Vous Payez)B.P. 939 Pointe-Noire, République du Congo+242 05 019 8501 or +242 05 358 3577																																												10. Political and Security Environment						    																						The most recent period of civil strife and violence ended in December 2017, when anti-government forces in the Pool region, which surrounds the capital of Brazzaville, signed a ceasefire agreement with the government.  Before this violence, the country was in civil conflict from 1997 to 1999.There are no known examples of purposeful damage to commercial projects and/or installations in the past ten years. Civil disturbances have occasionally resulted in damage to high-profile, public places such as police stations.The political environment is noticeably calmer since the end of the March 2021 presidential elections. Legislative and local elections in July 2022 were mostly peaceful even though several cases of fraud were reported. Senatorial elections scheduled in July 2023 are expected to be peaceful given the fact that they will not result in the population being directly consulted, the senatorial election will happen via votes from local councilors.																																		11. Labor Policies and Practices						    																						A. Unemployment in ROC remains high, with youth and women disproportionately affected. Reliable unemployment figures do not exist. The unemployment rate in ROC reached an estimated 11.90 percent at the end of 2021, according to trading economics global macro models and analyst expectations.B. Most of the population operates in the informal sector of the economy and does not declare revenues and profits, pay taxes, or pay employee benefits to the state. Women are more represented in the informal sector, especially in local public markets. According to a Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprise’s study in 2019, women entrepreneurs face additional structural challenges establishing and operating a business and accessing credit.C. Skilled labor shortages exist in several technical areas, including medicine, engineering, math, science, and banking. The government has no specific training programs to address these shortages.D. Several laws and government policies including the Hydrocarbon Law, the Local Content Law, and industry-specific bargaining agreements require preferential treatment in the hiring process to Congolese nationals.E. Government regulations govern employment adjustments in response to changing market conditions and include a severance requirement. Employers must demonstrate that market conditions have changed and obtain government approval before adjusting employment. Congolese severance laws differentiate between layoffs and firing. An employer must generally document malfeasance to terminate an employee for cause. There is no unemployment insurance or other social safety net programs for workers laid off for economic reasons. Most workers laid off for economic reasons rely on their former employer’s unemployment compensation.F. The government may waive some labor laws to attract or retain investment on a case-by-case basis. ROC has, for example, waived the requirement for certain multinationals to hire a Congolese general manager. No known labor law exceptions exist for Special Economic Zones versus the economy writ large.G. Collective bargaining is widely used in the ROC economy, more than half of companies used it across multiple industries.H. The Labor Court system mediates and arbitrates labor disputes.I. There were no major strikes that posed an investment risk during the reporting period.J. There are no serious questions of compliance in law or practice with international labor standards for working conditions that may pose a reputational risk to investors exist. The International Labor Organization has not identified any potential gaps in law or practice with international labor standards.K. The government did not enact any new labor laws or regulations during the last year.																																		12. U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and Other Investment Insurance or Development Finance Programs						    																						A. One U.S. company in ROC has a political risk insurance program with the DFC. ROC participates in the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).B. DFC maintains an agreement with ROC modeled after the one between ROC and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation’s (OPIC). The existing agreement required no prior host government approval of U.S. government investment support for a proposed project. To date, DFC has yet to negotiate an amendment of or replacement for the existing OPIC agreement.																																		13. Foreign Direct Investment Statistics						    																						&nbsp;Table 2: Key Macroeconomic Data, U.S. FDI in Host Country/EconomyHost Country Statistical source*USG or international statistical sourceUSG or International Source of Data:  BEA; IMF; Eurostat; UNCTAD, OtherEconomic DataYearAmountYearAmountHost Country Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ($M USD)2021$ 13,3702021$13,370www.worldbank.org/en/country Foreign Direct InvestmentHost Country Statistical source*USG or international statistical sourceUSG or international Source of data:  BEA; IMF; Eurostat; UNCTAD, OtherU.S. FDI in partner country ($M USD, stock positions)2021N/A2021N/ABEA data available at https://apps.bea.gov/international/factsheet/Host country’s FDI in the United States ($M USD, stock positions)2021N/A2021$0BEA data available at https://apps.bea.gov/international/factsheet/ Total inbound stock of FDI as % host GDP2021N/A2021N/AUNCTAD data available athttps://unctad.org/topic/investment/world-investment-report   * Source for Host Country Data: Institution National de la Statistiques. Table 3: Sources and Destination of FDIData not available.																																		14. Contact for More Information						    																						Economic SectionEmbassy of the United States of AmericaBoulevard Denis Sassou NguessoBrazzaville, Republic of Congo.+ 242 06 612 2000 brazzavillepolecon@state.gov 																										    							View report by:																				Albania											Algeria											Andorra											Angola											Antigua and Barbuda											Argentina											Armenia											Australia											Austria											Azerbaijan											The Bahamas											Bahrain											Bangladesh											Barbados											Belarus											Belgium											Belize											Benin											Bolivia											Bosnia and Herzegovina											Botswana											Brazil											Brunei											Bulgaria											Burkina Faso											Burma											Burundi											Cabo Verde											Cambodia											Cameroon											Canada											Chile											China											Colombia											Costa Rica											Côte d’Ivoire											Croatia											Cyprus											Czechia											Democratic Republic of the Congo											Denmark											Djibouti											Dominica											Dominican Republic											Ecuador											Egypt											El Salvador											Equatorial Guinea											Eritrea											Estonia											Eswatini											Ethiopia											Fiji											Finland											France and Monaco											The Gambia											Gabon											Georgia											Germany											Ghana											Greece											Grenada											Guatemala											Guinea											Guyana											Honduras											Haiti											Hong Kong											Hungary											Iceland											India											Indonesia											Iraq											Ireland											Israel											Italy											Jamaica											Japan											Jordan											Kazakhstan											Kenya											Kosovo											Kyrgyz Republic											Laos											Latvia											Lebanon											Lesotho											Liberia											Libya											Lithuania											Luxembourg											Macau											Madagascar											Malawi											Malaysia											Maldives											Mali											Malta											Marshall Islands											Mauritania											Mauritius											Mexico											Micronesia											Moldova											Mongolia											Montenegro											Morocco											Mozambique											Namibia											Netherlands											Nepal											New Zealand											Nicaragua											Niger											Nigeria											North Macedonia											Norway											Oman											Pakistan											Palau											Panama											Papua New Guinea											Paraguay											Peru											Philippines											Poland											Portugal											Qatar											Republic of the Congo											Romania											Rwanda											Saint Kitts and Nevis											Saint Lucia											Saint Vincent and the Grenadines											Samoa											Sao Tome and Principe											Saudi Arabia											Senegal											Serbia											Seychelles											Sierra Leone											Singapore											Slovakia											Slovenia											Somalia											South Africa											South Korea											South Sudan											Spain											Sri Lanka											Suriname											Sweden											Switzerland											Taiwan											Tajikistan											Tanzania											Thailand											Timor-Leste											Togo											Trinidad and Tobago											Tunisia											Türkiye											United Arab Emirates											Uganda											Ukraine											United Kingdom											Uruguay											Uzbekistan											Vietnam											West Bank and Gaza											Zambia											Zimbabwe															Build A Custom Report																						On This Page				search													>																										EXECUTIVE SUMMARY																1. Openness To, and Restrictions Upon, Foreign Investment																																							Policies Towards Foreign Direct Investment																																																						Limits on Foreign Control and Right to Private Ownership and Establishment																																																						Other Investment Policy Reviews																																																						Business Facilitation																																																						Outward Investment																																																			2. Bilateral Investment and Taxation Treaties																3. Legal Regime																																							Transparency of the Regulatory System																																																						International Regulatory Considerations																																																						Legal System and Judicial Independence																																																						Laws and Regulations on Foreign Direct Investment																																																						Competition and Antitrust Laws																																																						Expropriation and Compensation																																																						Dispute Settlement																																																				ICSID Convention and New York Convention																																												Investor-State Dispute Settlement																																												International Commercial Arbitration and Foreign Courts																																																																																				Bankruptcy Regulations																																																			4. Industrial Policies																																							Investment Incentives																																																						Foreign Trade Zones/Free Ports/Trade Facilitation																																																						Performance and Data Localization Requirements																																																			5. Protection of Property Rights																																							Real Property																																																						Intellectual Property Rights																																																			6. Financial Sector																																							Capital Markets and Portfolio Investment																																																						Money and Banking System																																																						Foreign Exchange and Remittances																																																				Foreign Exchange																																												Remittance Policies																																																																																				Sovereign Wealth Funds																																																			7. State-Owned Enterprises																																							Privatization Program																																																			8. Responsible Business Conduct																																							Additional Resources																																																						Climate Issues																																																			9. Corruption																																							Resources to Report Corruption																																																			10. Political and Security Environment																11. Labor Policies and Practices																12. U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and Other Investment Insurance or Development Finance Programs																13. Foreign Direct Investment Statistics																14. Contact for More Information																						Tags																					Bureau of African Affairs																								Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs																								Republic of the Congo
- Congo, Republic of the HomeReportsBureau of Economic and Business Affairs2023 Fiscal Transparency Report&#8230;Congo, Republic of the				hide	document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {	if(window.jQuery) {		jQuery( document ).ready(function() {			if (jQuery(".bc_middle").hasClass("collapse")) {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});				jQuery(".bc_hide").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});			} else {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").hide();			}		});	}});																							2023 Fiscal Transparency Report: Congo, Republic of the																																					Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs																																																																																																				 In this section																																												Government-by-Government Assessments: Congo, Republic of the																																												Government-by-Government Assessments: Congo, Republic of the				During the review period, the government made significant progress by reviewing its budget throughout the fiscal year. The government made its enacted budget widely and easily accessible to the public, including online. However, it did not make its executive budget proposal or end-of-year report publicly available within a reasonable period. Information on debt obligations was not publicly available. Budget documents did not provide a substantially complete picture of the government’s planned expenditures and revenues. The government maintained off-budget accounts not subject to audit or oversight. Publicly available budget documents did not include allocations to, earnings from, or debt information of state-owned enterprises. Budget executions deviated significantly from budget projections, and the government did not produce and publicly issued revised budget estimates or pass a supplementary budget. The supreme audit institution did not meet international standards of independence and did not make audit reports available for review. The government specified in law the criteria and procedures for awarding natural resource extraction contracts and licenses but did not always follow those regulations in practice. The government made basic information on natural resource extraction publicly available.The Republic of Congo’s fiscal transparency would be improved by:Making its executive budget proposal and end-of-year report publicly available within a reasonable period;Including all revenues and expenditures in the budget;Eliminating off-budget accounts or subjecting such accounts to audit and oversight;Detailing in budget documents allocations to, earnings from, and debt information of state-owned enterprises;Ensuring the supreme audit institution meets international standards of independence and publishes audit reports of the government’s executed budget;Producing and publicly issuing revised budget estimates or passing a supplementary budget when budget executions deviate significantly from projections; andFollowing natural resource extraction laws and regulations in practice.																												    							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- Republic of the Congo HomeReportsOffice to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons2023 Trafficking in Persons Report&#8230;Republic of the Congo				hide	document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {	if(window.jQuery) {		jQuery( document ).ready(function() {			if (jQuery(".bc_middle").hasClass("collapse")) {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});				jQuery(".bc_hide").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});			} else {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").hide();			}		});	}});																							2023 Trafficking in Persons Report: Republic of the Congo																																					Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons																																																																																																				 In this section										/																							REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO (Tier 2 Watch List)																																													REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO (Tier 2 Watch List)																															PRIORITIZED RECOMMENDATIONS:																																																																																		PROSECUTION																																																																																		PROTECTION																																																																																		PREVENTION																																																																																		TRAFFICKING PROFILE:																																																																																																								REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO (Tier 2 Watch List)				The Government of the Republic of the Congo does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so.  These efforts included training law enforcement officials on the anti-trafficking law and issuing six ministerial decrees to increase protection of Indigenous populations and reduce vulnerabilities to trafficking.  However, the government did not demonstrate overall increasing efforts compared with the previous reporting period, even considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, if any, on its anti-trafficking capacity.  The government did not investigate, prosecute, or convict any traffickers.  It did not proactively screen for trafficking victims among vulnerable populations and did not report identifying any victims for the third consecutive year.  The government did not take any proactive measures to address alleged official complicity in trafficking crimes.  The government continued to lack a formalized national anti-trafficking task force, hindering overall efforts.  Therefore the Republic of the Congo was downgraded to Tier 2 Watch List.																																					PRIORITIZED RECOMMENDATIONS:						    																																															Increase efforts to investigate and prosecute alleged traffickers, including officials allegedly complicit in trafficking, and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, which should involve significant prison terms.Train officials on implementing regulations to proactively identify trafficking victims, including by screening for trafficking indicators, especially among vulnerable populations, including child laborers, women and girls exploited in sex trafficking, unaccompanied children, Indigenous populations, refugees, and migrants.Formally establish the inter-ministerial anti-trafficking task force and designate an agency to lead the government’s anti-trafficking efforts.Finalize, approve, and fully implement the 2022-2023 NAP.Take steps to eliminate recruitment or placement fees charged to workers by foreign labor recruiters and ensure any recruitment fees are paid by employers.While respecting due process, expedite hearings and consider prosecuting trafficking cases in the low court while maintaining stringent sentencing according to the country’s anti-trafficking law.Increase anti-trafficking training for law enforcement officials, labor inspectors, immigration officials, and social workers, including the difference between human trafficking and migrant smuggling.Increase law enforcement and first responders’ capacity to collect data on trafficking cases.Further expand anti-trafficking efforts to identify victims and prosecute traffickers beyond Pointe-Noire and Brazzaville.Ensure victims are not inappropriately penalized solely for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked.Implement and consistently enforce strong regulations and oversight of labor recruitment companies, including training labor inspectors to identify and report trafficking crimes and holding fraudulent labor recruiters criminally accountable.Accede to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.																																												PROSECUTION						    																																															The government decreased anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts.  The 2019 Combating Trafficking in Persons Law criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking.  The related provisions in Congolese criminal law prescribed penalties of five to 10 years’ imprisonment, which are sufficiently stringent and, with respect to sex trafficking, commensurate with the penalties prescribed for other grave crimes, such as kidnapping.The government did not report any trafficking investigations, prosecutions, or convictions.  This compared with five investigations, one prosecution, and one conviction in the previous reporting period.  The government did not provide an update on four cases of alleged forced labor in Betou, in the north of the country, which resulted in the arrest of one individual in the previous reporting period.  Observers reported law enforcement officials did not investigate potential cases with trafficking indicators because of alleged conflation of human trafficking with other crimes.The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government officials complicit in human trafficking crimes; however, corruption and official complicity in trafficking crimes remained significant concerns, inhibiting law enforcement action. Authorities continued an investigation into a 2020 allegation of judicial corruption in a trafficking case but did not provide any update on the case.  Observers reported the court system remained dysfunctional, and many criminal cases continued to languish because of significant backlogs in the high court as a result of irregular court sessions, lack of centralized record keeping, and limited legal statistics.  The government provided anti-trafficking training to new police officers at the police academy.  The government did not report collaborating with foreign governments on any law enforcement efforts.																																												PROTECTION						    																																															The government maintained negligible protection efforts.  For the third consecutive year, officials did not report identifying any victims.  The government had capacity to provide comprehensive care services, in collaboration with international organizations and NGOs, for trafficking victims, including temporary shelter, medical and psycho-social care, basic necessities, and education; however, the government did not report providing any services to trafficking victims.  NGOs reportedly identified West African children exploited in domestic servitude or street vending by families in Pointe-Noire and Brazzaville; however, the government did not report whether any of the victims received assistance or were referred to services.The government’s implementing regulations for the anti-trafficking law provided formal written procedures for proactive victim identification, although officials did not report using these procedures to identify any victims.  The government also had a formal process to refer victims to government or NGO services, but it did not report doing so.  The government had capacity to offer financial and legal assistance to trafficking victims, including by providing lawyers and referrals to services, but did not report doing so during the reporting period.  A government-run center in Brazzaville could provide victims with basic necessities, education, and psycho-social counseling; however, authorities did not report assisting any trafficking victims at this shelter.  The government reported having a dedicated budget to assist victims of crime, including trafficking victims.In past reporting periods, law enforcement generally assisted in removing victims from NGO-identified exploitative situations if the NGO could provide funding for transportation.  The government largely relied on NGOs and international organizations to assist with the identification, referral, and provision of services for trafficking victims.  The government did not adequately fund these NGOs and relied heavily on their victim assistance programs and services.  The government published six ministerial decrees to increase protections for Indigenous populations, which included populations vulnerable to trafficking.  The government could offer some victim-witness assistance to victims participating in investigations and prosecutions, including police accompaniment during trials, and had some procedures to protect victims’ confidentiality.Due to inconsistent use of formal identification procedures and lack of screening by law enforcement, authorities may have detained or arrested some unidentified trafficking victims, including individuals involved in commercial sex.  The government provided the same availability of services to national and foreign victims and could provide temporary residency status to foreign trafficking victims during judicial proceedings; however, Congolese law did not provide legal alternatives to the removal of trafficking victims to countries where they would face retribution or hardship. Authorities provided foreign adult trafficking victims a choice between repatriation to their country of origin or reintegration into the local community.  Congolese law allowed victims to request restitution in trafficking cases.																																												PREVENTION						    																																															The government maintained efforts to prevent trafficking.  The government’s federal inter-ministerial committee convened four times.  The government, however, continued to remain without a national entity to lead the government’s efforts, and a ministerial decree to formalize the task force remained pending by the end of the reporting period, hindering the overall effectiveness of the country’s anti-trafficking response.  The government’s 2022-2023 NAP remained pending formal approval from the Prime Minister’s Office by the end of the reporting period.  Despite the lack of a finalized NAP, the Ministry of Justice had a 2022-2025 Action Plan for Indigenous People that included labor issues, and the Ministry of Social Affairs had a 2021-2023 Plan for Trafficking in Persons.  The government reported it updated and disseminated its 2022-2026 action plan on child protection, which included child trafficking.  Officials held seven public awareness campaigns on the risks of human trafficking.  The government continued to operate a hotline for victims of crime, including trafficking; however, officials did not report whether it received any calls related to human trafficking.The government did not have effective laws or policies regulating labor recruiters.  Labor inspectors overseeing working conditions in the country conducted irregular inspections and observers reported most inspections occurred only at urban worksites.  The government did not report training labor inspectors on human trafficking or reporting any potential trafficking crimes to law enforcement.  The government, in partnership with an international organization, published a child labor study in June 2022.  The Republic of the Congo was not party to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.  The government coordinated with the Governments of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Benin to strengthen screening and identification of vulnerable unaccompanied children.  The government provided official documentation to 100 Indigenous persons who were without documentation and at risk of trafficking.  The government did not report efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts.  The government provided anti-trafficking training to its diplomats.																																												TRAFFICKING PROFILE:						    																																															As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in the Republic of the Congo, and traffickers exploit victims from the Republic of the Congo abroad.  Forced labor involving adults and children continues to be the primary type of trafficking, predominately in the agricultural sector.  Most trafficking victims originate from Benin and the DRC, and to a lesser extent from Gabon and other neighboring countries.  Traffickers exploit children, primarily from West Africa, in domestic servitude in the cities of Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire, Ouesso, and Dolisie.Congolese authorities and civil society representatives report fraudulent employment agents located in Benin, the Central African Republic, the DRC, and Gabon recruit victims into exploitative conditions in the Republic of the Congo.  Foreign business owners and Congolese exploit most foreign victims in forced labor in domestic service, market vending, and the fishing sector.  Some hotel owners and other criminal actors exploit adults and children in sex trafficking, with the most common victims being from the DRC.  Parents in foreign countries, mostly West African countries, sometimes send their children to the Republic of the Congo with the expectation that the child will send remittances or receive an education, but instead traffickers exploit the children in sex trafficking or forced labor.Internal trafficking primarily involves recruitment from remote rural areas for exploitation in cities.  Certain communities, including refugees and Indigenous populations, are particularly vulnerable to trafficking.  Individuals in the fishing industry and market shop owners were the primary exploiters of victims within the country.  Traffickers, including members of the majority Bantu community, exploit some members of Indigenous populations in forced labor in the agricultural sector, with Indigenous populations comprising the majority of internal trafficking victims; reports suggest that some servitude involving Congolese might be hereditary.																																				    							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- Republic of the Congo HomeReportsOffice of International Religious Freedom2022 Report on International Religious Freedom&#8230;Republic of the Congo				hide	document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {	if(window.jQuery) {		jQuery( document ).ready(function() {			if (jQuery(".bc_middle").hasClass("collapse")) {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});				jQuery(".bc_hide").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});			} else {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").hide();			}		});	}});																							2022 Report on International Religious Freedom: Republic of the Congo																																					Office of International Religious Freedom																																																																																							Download Report																																																																																	 In this section										/																							Executive Summary																																													Executive Summary																															Section I. Religious Demography																																																																																		Section II. Status of Government Respect for Religious Freedom																																																									Legal Framework																																																																											Government Practices																																																																											Actions of Foreign Forces and Nonstate Actors																																																																																	Section III. Status of Societal Respect for Religious Freedom																																																																																		Section IV. U.S. Government Policy and Engagement																																																																																																								Executive Summary				The constitution provides for freedom of religion and prohibits discrimination based on religious belief. The law regulates the establishment and operation of religious groups. By law, eight major religious groups are charged with electing the head of the National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI).The government did not issue any final registration permits for religious groups; it has not done so since 2014. It continued, however, the practice of allowing groups that had presumably filed registration permit requests to operate, and these domestic religious groups reported they continued to do so unhindered. Foreign-based religious groups also stated they operated without restriction after applying for legal status. Muslim community leaders again said the government did not afford them some of the same privileges as larger religious groups, such as having Muslim chaplains in the military, police, and hospitals.The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria-Democratic Republic of the Congo (ISIS-DRC), known locally as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an armed group designated by the United States as a terrorist organization, continued to operate in the country. ISIS-DRC/ADF usually attacked civilians, hospitals, and schools indiscriminately in North Kivu and Ituri Provinces, but on occasion it targeted churches and religious leaders. While the violence targeted and affected all communities, most victims were Christian, reflecting their status as the religious majority. On October 19, ISIS-DRC/ADF raided the Catholic hospital in Maboya village, killing seven individuals, including a Catholic nun staff member.The Jehovah’s Witnesses Religious Freedom Report for 2022 stated that attacks against members of the religious group perpetrated by a range of actors continued in the interior provinces.U.S. embassy officers met with officials from the Ministries of Human Rights, Justice, Defense, and Interior and discussed religious freedom issues, including government relations with religious organizations. Embassy officials also regularly urged the government, security force leaders, and community and political leaders to refrain from violence and to respect the rights of civil society, including of religious groups, to assemble and express themselves freely. Throughout the year, embassy and Washington-based officials engaged with religious groups.																														Section I.													 Religious Demography												    																																															The U.S. government estimates the total population at 108.4 million (midyear 2022).  In 2010, the Pew Research Center estimated 95.8 percent of the population was Christian, 1.5 percent Muslim, and 1.8 percent with no religious affiliation.  Of Christians, Pew estimated 48.1 percent were Protestant, including evangelical Christians and the Church of Jesus Christ on Earth through the Prophet Simon Kimbangu (Kimbanguist), and 47.3 percent Roman Catholic.  There are approximately 60 Protestant denominations.  Other Christian groups include Jehovah’s Witnesses, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Church of Jesus Christ), and the Greek and Independent Orthodox Churches.  There are small communities of Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Baha’is, and followers of indigenous religions.  In contrast to the Pew estimate, Muslim leaders estimate their community currently makes up approximately 5 percent of the population.A significant portion of the population combines traditional beliefs and practices with Christianity or other religious beliefs.																																					Section II.													 Status of Government Respect for Religious Freedom												    																																																Legal Framework										The constitution prohibits religious discrimination and provides for freedom of religion and the right to worship, subject to “compliance with the law, public order, public morality, and the rights of others.” It stipulates the right to religious freedom may not be abrogated even when the government declares a state of emergency or siege.The law regulates the establishment and operation of religious groups. According to law, the government may legally recognize, suspend recognition of, or dissolve religious groups. The government grants tax-exempt status to recognized religious groups. Nonprofit organizations, including foreign and domestic religious groups, must register with the government to obtain official recognition by submitting a copy of their bylaws and constitution. Religious groups are required to register only once for the group as a whole, but nonprofit organizations affiliated with a religious group must register separately. Upon receiving a submission, the Ministry of Justice issues a provisional approval and, within six months, a permanent approval or rejection. Unless the ministry specifically rejects the application, the group is considered approved and registered after six months even if the ministry has not issued a final determination. Applications from international headquarters of religious organizations must be approved by the Presidency after submission through the justice ministry. The law requires officially recognized religious groups to operate as nonprofits and respect the general public order. It also permits religious groups to establish places of worship and train clergy. The law prescribes penalties of up to two years’ imprisonment, a fine of 200,000 Congolese francs ($99), or both for groups that are not properly registered but receive gifts and donations on behalf of a church or other religious organization.By law, eight religious groups that meet certain characteristics with regard to their status and competence in electoral matters (i.e., acting as civil society organizations) are charged with nominating the head of CENI. These groups include the Catholic Church, Protestant groups, the Muslim community, the Salvation Army, the Independent Church of Congo, the Kimbanguists, the Revival Church, and the Independent Orthodox Church.The constitution permits public schools to work with religious authorities to provide religious education to students in accordance with students’ religious beliefs if parents request it. Government-funded public schools administered by religious institutions may provide religious instruction. Government-owned schools may not mandate religious instruction but may offer religion as a subject.The law also prohibits insulting the head of state, the army, or government institutions and authorities, malicious and public slander, hate speech or speech to incite violence, and language presumed to threaten national security.The country is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.																																				Government Practices										In April, CENI President Denis Kadima attended the International Kimbanguist Church’s 101st anniversary celebration at its headquarters in Nkamba. Local press reported that Papa Zako, the spiritual chief of the church, gave a speech highlighting the collaboration between CENI and the church. In August, the provincial Minister of Culture, Arts, and Intercommunal Relations in Haut-Katanga Province, Immaculee Bagabe, attended the groundbreaking ceremony for a new Church of Jesus Christ house of worship in Lubumbashi.The Ministry of Justice did not issue any final registration permits for religious groups; it has not done so since 2014. The government, however, continued its practice of permitting groups that had presumably filed registration permit requests to operate, and these domestic religious groups reported they continued to do so unhindered. Foreign-based religious groups stated they operated without restriction after applying for legal status. Under existing law, which remained under review, nonprofit organizations could operate as legal entities by default if a government ministry ruled favorably on their application and the government did not object to their application for status. According to registration statistics for 2015, the latest year for which the Ministry of Justice had statistics, there were 14,568 legally registered nonprofit organizations, 11,119 legal religious nonprofit organizations, and 1,073 foreign nonprofit organizations in the country.The government continued to rely on religious organizations to provide public services such as education and health care throughout the country. According to the Ministry of Education, approximately 72 percent of primary school students and 65 percent of secondary school students attended government-funded public schools administered by religious organizations. The government paid teacher salaries at some schools run by religious groups, depending on the needs of the schools and whether they were registered as schools eligible to receive government funding. Most schools were run by the Catholic Church.Muslim community leaders stated that government relations were generally good, but the government did not afford them some of the same privileges as larger religious groups. The government continued to deny Muslims the opportunity to provide chaplains in the military, police force, and hospitals, despite a complaint filed in 2015 with the then President and his cabinet. Catholic, Protestant, and Kimbanguist chaplains served in the police force and armed forces.																																				Actions of Foreign Forces and Nonstate Actors										ISIS-DRC/ADF continued to be active in the country. The group reportedly attacked civilians indiscriminately, regardless of religion, although most victims were Christian, reflecting their status as the majority religious group. Both local Christian and Muslim leaders, with vocal support from the government, again condemned ISIS-DRC/ADF&#8217;s attacks on civilians. According to a May 2021 report by the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Kivu Security Tracker, the aim of ISIS-DRC/ADF’s killings was to discredit and put pressure on government authorities, to divide the government forces pursing them, and to divide society as a whole. In its June report, the United Nations Group of Experts noted that ISIS-DRC/ADF continued to extend its area of operations in southern Ituri Province, particularly in the territories of Mambasa and Irumu.In September, ISIS-DRC/ADF attacked Kathiri village (North Kivu), killing two civilians. The assailants also vandalized a local Catholic church, cutting off the head of a statue of Jesus Christ and stealing and destroying the robes used during masses.In March, authorities began the trial of a group of 16 ISIS-DRC/ADF members for killing two local imams, Sheikh Ali Amini and Djamali Moussa, in Beni, North Kivu, in May 2021. The group stated they targeted the imams for their refusing to facilitate the recruitment of children to ISIS-DRC/ADF. The defendants also said that the killings of the two imams had been a direct order from the head of ISIS-DRC/ADF, Musa Seka Baluku, who has been classified by the United States as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist since March 2021. Sheikh Ali Amini, a local Muslim leader, was a strong critic of Islamic militancy in the region and was known for his regular alerts to the community on ISIS-DRC/ADF movements in the region. As of December, the trial remained pending.According to NGO International Christian Concern, ISIS-DRC/ADF forces raided the Catholic hospital in Maboya village on October 19, killed six patients and a Catholic nun staff member, stole drugs and medical equipment, and set the hospital on fire. Local residents told the NGO that several individuals from shops and houses close to the hospital, including two nuns, were reported missing after the attack, probably kidnapped by the attackers. The NGO said ISIS-DRC/ADF had increased attacks on villages and towns in North Kivu and Ituri Provinces since early October, when 20 Christians were reportedly killed in the town of Kainama, North Kivu.																																					Section III.													 Status of Societal Respect for Religious Freedom												    																																															In August, Radio Okapi reported one instance of vandalism and one of arson targeting Catholic churches in the city of Mbuji-Mayi (capital of Kasai Oriental Province).  Police later opened an investigation, but as of December they had not identified the perpetrators.  Both Prime Minister Sama Lukonde and the mayor of Mbuji-Mayi condemned the acts and on August 8, the Archbishop of Mbuji-Mayi excommunicated the unknown perpetrators.The Jehovah’s Witnesses Religious Freedom Report for 2022 stated that there were several attacks on members in the interior provinces, areas described as less tolerant of Jehovah’s Witnesses than Kinshasa, according to members.  On February 12 in Kwilu Province, a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses was beaten to death by family members who accused him of using sorcery after his niece was struck and killed by lightning.  In South Kivu Province on March 30, another member was physically assaulted for not taking part in a Kimbilikiti initiation ceremony.  Kimibilikiti is an adulthood initiation ceremony for males of the Lega ethnic group.  The Jehovah’s Witnesses report also stated that some students who were members of the religious group had been expelled from public schools run by other religious confessions for refusing to participate in religious activities such as Catholic Mass, and that school authorities had fired or suspended some teachers who were members for not participating in religious activities or tithing at those schools.  According to the report, most of those cases were under appeal.																																					Section IV.													 U.S. Government Policy and Engagement												    																																															The U.S. Ambassador and embassy officers discussed a range of religious freedom issues, including government relations with religious organizations, with officials from the Ministries of Human Rights, Justice, Defense, and Interior. Embassy officials also regularly urged the government, security force leaders, and community and political leaders to refrain from violence and inflammatory rhetoric and to respect the rights of civil society, including of religious groups, to assemble and express themselves freely.Throughout the year, embassy and Washington-based officials engaged members of the eight primary religious confessions and human rights organizations, especially in the eastern, conflict-affected provinces. In meetings with members and representatives of both the largest denominations and smaller faith communities, including Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses and Muslim community leaders, U.S. officials discussed religious groups’ ability to operate within the country, their relationship with the government and other religious organizations, and their freedom to practice their religion as they saw fit.																																				    							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Religious Demography																																																	Section II. Status of Government Respect for Religious Freedom																																							Legal Framework																																																						Government Practices																																																						Actions of Foreign Forces and Nonstate Actors																																																			Section III. Status of Societal Respect for Religious Freedom																																																	Section IV. U.S. Government Policy and Engagement																																																							Tags																					Bureau of African Affairs																								Office of International Religious Freedom																																Religious Freedom																															Republic of the Congo
- Republic of the Congo HomeReportsBureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices&#8230;Republic of the Congo				hide	document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {	if(window.jQuery) {		jQuery( document ).ready(function() {			if (jQuery(".bc_middle").hasClass("collapse")) {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});				jQuery(".bc_hide").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});			} else {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").hide();			}		});	}});																							2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Republic of the Congo																																					Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor																																																																																							Download Report																																																							Translations																																																																 In this section										/																							EXECUTIVE SUMMARY																																													EXECUTIVE SUMMARY																															Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person																																																									a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings																																																																											b. Disappearance																																																																											c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and Other Related Abuses																																																																			Prison and Detention Center Conditions																																																																																																																		d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention																																																																			Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees																																																																																																																		e. Denial of Fair Public Trial																																																																			Trial Procedures																																																								Political Prisoners and Detainees																																																								Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies																																																																																																																		f. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence																																																																											g. Conflict-related Abuses																																																																																	Section 2. Respect for Civil Liberties																																																									a. Freedom of Expression, Including for Members of the Press and Other Media																																																																			Internet Freedom																																																																																																																		b. Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly and Association																																																																			Freedom of Peaceful Assembly																																																																																																																		c. Freedom of Religion																																																																											d. Freedom of Movement and the Right to Leave the Country																																																																											e. Protection of Refugees																																																																											f. Status and Treatment of Internally Displaced Persons																																																																											g. Stateless Persons																																																																																	Section 3. Freedom to Participate in the Political Process																																																																												Elections and Political Participation																																																																																	Section 4. Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government																																																																																		Section 5. Governmental Posture Towards International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human Rights																																																																																		Section 6. Discrimination and Societal Abuses																																																									Women																																																																											Systemic Racial or Ethnic Violence and Discrimination																																																																											Indigenous Peoples																																																																											Children																																																																											Antisemitism																																																																											Trafficking in Persons																																																																											Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics																																																																											Persons with Disabilities																																																																											Other Societal Violence or Discrimination																																																																																	Section 7. Worker Rights																																																									a. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining																																																																											b. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor																																																																											c. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment																																																																											d. Discrimination with Respect to Employment and Occupation																																																																											e. Acceptable Conditions of Work																																																																																																							EXECUTIVE SUMMARY				The Republic of the Congo is a semipresidential republic in which the constitution vests most decision-making authority and political power in the president and prime minister. In 2015 the country adopted a new constitution that extends the maximum number of presidential terms and years to three terms of five years and provides complete immunity to former presidents. In March 2021 the Constitutional Court proclaimed the incumbent, Denis Sassou Nguesso, the winner of the March 21 presidential election, regardless of opposition and international criticism of electoral irregularities. The government last held legislative and local elections in July, with legislative election irregularities sufficient to restrict the ability of citizens to choose their government. While the country has a multiparty political system, members of the president’s Congolese Labor Party and its allies retained 89 percent of legislative and 50 percent of the local seats, and Congolese Labor Party members occupied almost all senior government positions.The national police, gendarmerie, army, navy, and air force have responsibility for law enforcement and maintenance of order within the country. The national police maintain internal security and report to the Ministry of Interior. The gendarmerie reports to the Ministry of Defense and conducts domestic paramilitary and law enforcement activities and reports to the Ministry of Interior. The army, navy, and air force, which also report to the Ministry of Defense, also conduct limited domestic security activities. Civilian authorities generally maintained effective control over the security forces. There were reports that police and gendarmes committed some abuses.Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention; political prisoners or detainees; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; serious restrictions on free expression and media, including unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists and censorship; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association; inability of citizens to change their government peacefully through free and fair elections; serious and unreasonable restrictions on political participation; serious government corruption; serious government restrictions on or harassment of domestic and international human rights organizations; lack of investigation of and accountability for gender-based violence, including but not limited to domestic and intimate partner violence; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting Indigenous peoples; and crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex persons.The government took limited steps to prosecute or punish officials who committed human rights abuses or acts of corruption, and official impunity was a problem.																														Section 1.													 Respect for the Integrity of the Person												    																																																a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings										There were reports on social media of the government or its agents committing arbitrary or unlawful killings; however, for such reports (besides those specified below), no independent confirmation was possible, leading to uncertainty regarding the frequency of the incidents and the number of persons arbitrarily deprived of life. In some cases, the Ministry of Justice coordinated with the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense to investigate security force involvement in the deaths of citizens and pursued prosecution.Human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) continued to report deaths resulting from abuse in prisons and pretrial detention centers (see also section 1.c.).																																				b. Disappearance										There were no reports of disappearances by or on behalf of government authorities.																																				c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and Other Related Abuses										The constitution prohibits torture, and the law contains a general prohibition against assault and battery, but there is no legal framework specifically banning torture.  There were reports on social media of the government or its agents meting out cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment to detainees or convicts.  In February the court convicted five police officers of torture that led to the death of one detainee and left a second detainee disabled.  The officers were sentenced to five years of forced labor.The Congolese Armed Forces (FAC) did not maintain a separate military justice system.  In most cases the military handled allegations of abuse by soldiers outside the country through administrative procedures, which often included lengthy detentions.  The FAC reported that all personnel involved in allegations in the UN peacekeeping deployments in the Central African Republic from 2015-18 received legal or administrative discipline in line with these administrative procedures.Officials took steps to prosecute or punish some members of the security forces who acted with impunity, but enforcement was not consistent.  Politicization and corruption were apparent factors in cases that went uninvestigated.  Abuses are investigated by the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Justice.  Police and security forces regularly received training on respect for human rights.  The training covered international humanitarian law and international human rights law.																Prison and Detention Center Conditions						Prison and detention center conditions were harsh and life threatening due to gross overcrowding, inadequate sanitary conditions, and a severe deficit of medical and psychological care.Abusive Physical Conditions:  The Brazzaville Prison, built in 1943 to accommodate 150 inmates, held more than five times its designed capacity, including women and juveniles.  The Pointe-Noire Prison, built in 1934 to hold 75 inmates, held more than six times its designed capacity.  In addition to these official prisons, the government’s intelligence and security services operated detention centers and security prisons that were inaccessible for inspection.Authorities generally maintained separate areas within facilities for juveniles, women, and men in Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire.  In Brazzaville, while these areas were separate, they were sometimes easily accessible with no locked entryways.  In the other 10 prisons throughout the country, authorities sometimes held juvenile detainees with adult prisoners.Prison conditions for women were generally better than those for men.  There was less crowding in women’s cells.  Authorities held pretrial detainees with convicted prisoners.  In Brazzaville, authorities confined and treated prisoners with illnesses in one area but allowed them to interact with other inmates.In the Brazzaville Prison, conditions for wealthy or well-connected prisoners generally were better than conditions for others.There were a few reported deaths resulting from abuse, neglect, and overcrowding in prisons and pretrial detention centers.  A local NGO reported that the number and causes of death while in custody were unavailable.In January, two young men, Rodhe Dabela and Akuya, allegedly died while in prison in the town of Ouesso – Dabela reportedly due to lack of proper medical assistance while he was detained for theft, and Akuya from sudden, unknown causes.In March there were reports that Ambroise Ndongo died while in prison in Ouesso, reportedly due to malnutrition while he was detained for murder, and that Destin Kombe died while in prison in Owando, reportedly from severe anemia and malaria.In Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire, authorities equipped the prisons with some mattresses and prisoner uniforms.  Most inmates, however, slept on the floor on cardboard in small, overcrowded cells that exposed them to disease.  The prisons lacked drainage and ventilation, and they had poorly maintained lighting with wiring protruding from the walls.  Local NGOs commented that the cells were infested with insects and rats.  Basic and emergency medical care were limited.  Medical personnel at the Brazzaville Prison cited tuberculosis, dysentery, malaria, and HIV and AIDS as the most common maladies affecting prisoners.  Authorities did not provide specialized medical care to prisoners with HIV and AIDS, nor were HIV tests available in prisons.  Authorities took pregnant women to hospitals to give birth, and authorities sometimes allowed them to breastfeed their infants in prison.  Access to social services personnel was severely limited due to insufficient staffing, overcrowding, and stigmatization of those with mental disabilities.  Prison authorities permitted outdoor exercise intermittently.Prison inmates reportedly received, on average, two daily meals consisting of rice, bread, and fish or meat.  The food provided in prisons did not meet minimum caloric or nutrition requirements; however, prison authorities usually permitted inmates’ families to supply them with additional food.  Authorities permitted women to cook over small fires in a shared recreational space.  The Pointe-Noire Prison occasionally had running water.  All the prisons supplied potable water to inmates in buckets.  The government evacuated some prisoners to hospitals when care was needed and the prisoner was well connected.Administration:  Prison rules allow prisoners and detainees to submit complaints to judicial authorities without censorship, but officials did not respect this right.  Authorities did not investigate credible allegations of inhuman conditions brought to them by NGOs and detainees’ families.  Prisoners only had weekly access to Christian religious services.Access to prisoners generally required a communication permit from a judge.  The permit allowed visitors to spend five to 15 minutes with a prisoner, although authorities usually did not strictly enforce this limit.  In most cases, visits took place in either a crowded open area or a small room with one extended table where approximately 10 detainees sat at a time.  A new permit is technically required for each visit, but families were often able to return for multiple visits on one permit.  Since many prisoners’ families lived far away, visits were infrequent because of the financial hardship of travel and COVID-19 preventive measures.Independent Monitoring:  The government provided domestic human rights groups with limited access to prisons and detention centers.  Observers generally considered the primary local NGO focused on prison conditions independent; authorities, however, denied it access to the interior of several prisons on multiple occasions.Other human rights NGOs that monitored detention conditions requested letters of permission from the Ministry of Justice to visit prisons.  Their repeated requests went unanswered.Representatives of Christian and Muslim religiously affiliated charitable organizations visited prisons and detention centers for charitable work and religious counseling in line with a framework agreement that allows for visits from chaplains or equivalent to provide religious counseling in prison.Authorities granted diplomatic missions access to both prisons and police jails to provide consular assistance to their citizens.																										d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention										The constitution and law prohibit arbitrary arrest and detention, but local NGOs reported arbitrary arrest continued to be a problem.  The constitution and law provide detainees the right to challenge the legal basis of their detention before a competent judge or authority, but the government did not observe the law regularly.																Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees						The constitution and law require that a duly authorized official issue warrants before officers make an arrest, that a person be apprehended openly, that a lawyer be present during initial questioning, and that detainees be brought before a judge within three days and either charged or released within four months.  The government regularly violated these provisions.There was a bail system, but with 70 percent of the population living in poverty, most detainees could not afford to post bail.  There is an option for provisional release, but officials usually denied these requests.  Authorities sometimes informed detainees of charges against them at the time of arrest, but the filing of formal charges often took more than one week.  There were reports authorities arrested detainees secretly and without judicial authorization and sometimes detained suspects incommunicado or put them under de facto house arrest.  Police at times held persons for six months or longer before filing charges.  Observers attributed most administrative delays to lack of staff in the Ministry of Justice and the court system.  Family members sometimes received prompt access to detainees but often only after payment of bribes.  The law requires authorities to provide lawyers at government expense to indigent detainees facing criminal charges, but this regularly did not occur.The law states authorities may hold a detainee for a maximum of 48 to 72 hours in a police jail before the case is reviewed by an attorney general.  Thereafter, authorities must decide to release or to transfer the individual to a prison for pretrial detention.  Authorities generally did not observe the 72-hour maximum and frequently held detainees for several weeks before an attorney general freed or transferred them to a prison to await trial.  The law states a defendant or accused person may apply for provisional release at any point during his or her detention, from either an investigating judge or a trial court, depending on the type of case.  The law states that provisional release should generally be granted, provided the judicial investigation is sufficiently advanced and the accused does not pose a risk of bribing witnesses or a threat to public order.  This provision of the law was not respected.Arbitrary Arrest:  Reports suggested arbitrary and false arrests continued to occur (see section 1.e., Political Prisoners and Detainees).  On October 14, the government provisionally released Chancelia Moulounda, a student detained since February 2021, after being accused of undermining the international security of the state and illegal possession of weapons of war (see also section 2.a., Freedom of Expression).Pretrial Detention:  Under the law, the four-month pretrial detention period is extendable for two additional months with judicial approval.  The law is not clear whether the two-month extension is renewable; however, judges often renewed the two-month extension period.  Between 60 and 75 percent of detainees in prison were pretrial detainees.  Prison authorities stated the average pretrial detention for nonfelony cases lasted one to three months and for felony cases at least 12 months.  Human rights activists, however, stated the average was much longer for felony cases, commonly exceeding one year, and sometimes exceeding the maximum sentence for the alleged crime.Lengthy pretrial detentions were due to the judicial system’s lack of capacity and, according to observers, a lack of political will to address the problem.  The law defines three levels of crime:  misdemeanors (punishable by less than one year in prison), delicts (punishable by one to five years in prison), and felonies (punishable by more than five years in prison).  Criminal courts tried misdemeanor and delict cases regularly.  The judicial system, however, suffered from a serious backlog of felony cases.  By law, criminal courts must hear felony cases four times per year, but the government held only three criminal sessions in each of the five appeals courts and continued to hold persons accused of felonies in pretrial detention, pending trial.																										e. Denial of Fair Public Trial										The constitution and law provide for an independent judiciary, but the government did not always respect judicial independence and employed political influence at times.  Corruption also undermined judicial independence.  International NGOs reported in 2019 the judiciary was dominated by allies of the president.  Authorities generally abided by court orders; however, judges did not always issue direct court orders against accused authorities.In rural areas, traditional courts continued to handle many local disputes, particularly property, inheritance, and witchcraft cases, as well as domestic conflicts that could not be resolved within the family.																Trial Procedures						The constitution provides for the right to a fair trial, but authorities did not always respect this right.Defendants in all criminal trials enjoy the presumption of innocence and have the right to be present at their trials and to consult with an attorney in a timely manner, although this did not always occur.  The law obligates the government to provide legal assistance to any indigent defendant facing serious criminal charges, but such legal assistance was not always available because the government did not generally pay for public defenders.Defendants have the right to adequate time and facilities to prepare a defense.  They also have the right to confront or question accusers and witnesses against them and present witnesses and evidence on their own behalf.  Defendants have the right not to be compelled to testify or confess guilt and have the right to appeal.  In highly politicized cases, the government denied defendants the right to a fair, timely, and public trial, to adequate time and facilities to prepare a defense, to confront prosecution’s witnesses, and to present their own witnesses and evidence.						Political Prisoners and Detainees						There were reports of political prisoners and detainees, although verifiable estimates of their total number were not available.  While the government asserted there were no political prisoners, human rights groups and international observers maintained the government detained or imprisoned persons solely or chiefly because of their political beliefs.  In 2020 the UN Mission in Brazzaville, based on information gathered from local NGOs, reported 24 persons in detention for political reasons.  The government did not comment on the release of any prisoners.Former presidential candidate Andre Okombi Salissa and Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko remained in prison as of December.  In 2020 the government transferred Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko to Turkey (Türkiye) for one month of medical treatment.  Upon his return, due to pending health conditions related to pneumonia, he was placed in the Brazzaville Military Hospital for treatment and subsequently moved back to the central prison of Brazzaville.  Mokoko and Okombi Salissa were serving sentences of 20 years at hard labor after being convicted of “undermining the internal security of the state” as well as “illegal possession of weapons and ammunition of war.”The government arrested five political activists in March 2021 on allegations of posing a threat to national security:  Landry Boumbeya, Alex Dzabana Ibacka, Rive Niaty, Christ Belvy Dongui, and Jean Louis Packat.  Boumbeya, Dongui, and Dzabana Ibacka were released in July.  Packat and Niaty remained in custody.The government permitted limited access to those considered political prisoners by international human rights and humanitarian organizations and diplomatic missions.						Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies						Individuals may file lawsuits in court on civil matters related to human rights, including seeking damages for or cessation of a human rights abuse.  The public, however, generally lacked confidence in the judicial system’s ability to address human rights problems.																										f. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence										The constitution and law prohibit such actions; the government, however, did not always respect these prohibitions.There were reports government authorities entered homes without judicial or other appropriate authorization, monitored private movements, and employed informer systems.																																				g. Conflict-related Abuses										Physical Abuse, Punishment, and Torture: According to the Conduct in UN Field Missions online portal, there were a total of 14 open allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse by the country’s peacekeepers deployed to the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic in 2015-18. This included one allegation received during the year involving alleged rape of a child and exploitative relationships with adults. The United Nations also received three allegations during 2021, one in 2020, two in 2019, two in 2018, and six in 2016. Of the allegations from previous years, eight allegedly involved the rape of a child, including one alleged rape of a child by four peacekeepers, and two cases allegedly involved exploitative relationships with an adult. As of October, the government had not reported to the United Nations regarding accountability measures taken for any open allegations.																																					Section 2.													 Respect for Civil Liberties												    																																																a. Freedom of Expression, Including for Members of the Press and Other Media										The constitution and law provide for freedom of expression in all forms of communication and prohibit censorship, including for the press and other media, but the government did not always respect these rights.Freedom of Expression:  Individuals could criticize the government publicly or privately but feared reprisal.  The constitution criminalizes speech that incites ethnic hatred, violence, or civil war and makes it punishable by no less than five years in prison.  It also criminalizes any act or event that promotes racism or xenophobia.  In July the government suspended a ruling party candidate in Ouesso city for using ethnically charged hate speech during the legislative elections campaign.On December 2, authorities detained an opposition leader for six days following a press conference in which he called for the government to release two former presidential candidates, Andre Okombi Salissa and Jean-Marie Michel Mokoko, who were each serving 20-year sentences.  The government did not provide an explanation for the detention, nor did it comment on the opposition leader’s arrest.Violence and Harassment:  There were unconfirmed reports of direct and indirect intimidation of journalists by the government, including telephone calls from official and anonymous persons warning journalists and news outlets not to use video of politically sensitive events or publish certain stories.Plainclothes policemen arrested editor in chief of the satirical newspaper Sel &amp; Piment (Salt and Pepper) Raymond Malonga for refusing to appear in court to face charges of libel and defamation in February 2021 for alleging the wife of the head of the National Security Council used money from the National Treasury for personal use.  Malonga was released in August 2021 and was ordered to pay a fine of 30 million CFA francs ($54,500).  Sel &amp; Piment resumed publication in July.On December 21, the Superior Council for the Freedom of Communication (CSLC) suspended indefinitely the news channel VoxTV on grounds that the channel “transmitted, on a loop, information that could threaten public order.”  The CSLC did not specify what content led to the decision, but NGOs and observers reported the suspension was due to the channel broadcasting an interview with the opposition leader who had been detained for calling for the release of political prisoners earlier in the month.  The CSLC lifted the suspension on December 27 without providing further details on the grounds for the suspension but stated the channel was at fault for “failure to uphold professional obligations” and calling on the station to ensure it presented only “balanced information” in the future.Censorship or Content Restrictions for Members of the Press and Other Media, Including Online Media:  Media outlets were required to register with the CSLC, an official regulatory body.  Media outlets that violated council regulations were subject to financial sanctions or temporary shutdown.  The president appoints the director of the council.Many journalists and editors at larger circulation media outlets practiced self-censorship and promoted the editorial views of media owners.  Newspapers published open letters written by government opponents.Libel/Slander Laws:  The law provides for monetary penalties and suspension of a publication’s permission to print for defamation and incitement to violence.  Authorities sometimes brought charges under these laws.																Internet Freedom						There were unverifiable reports government authorities monitored private digital communications without appropriate legal authority, including email, text messaging, or other digital communications intended to remain private.  During the July local and legislative elections, the government did not censor the internet.																										b. Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly and Association										The government limited freedoms of peaceful assembly but generally respected freedom of association.																Freedom of Peaceful Assembly						The constitution and law provide for freedom of peaceful assembly.  Nevertheless, the government required authorization from the Ministry of Interior and Decentralization and appropriate local officials for assemblies and demonstrations.  There were no reports of any cases where groups were denied a permit from these authorities during the reporting period.  There were no reports of violence against demonstrators.																										c. Freedom of Religion										See the Department of State’s International Religious Freedom Report at  https://www.state.gov/religiousfreedomreport/.																																				d. Freedom of Movement and the Right to Leave the Country										The constitution and law provide for freedom of internal movement, foreign travel, emigration, and repatriation. The government generally respected these rights.Foreign Travel: By law all citizens are eligible for a national passport. The government, however, lacked the capacity to produce passports in sufficient numbers to meet demand and prioritized providing passports to those individuals who could demonstrate imminent need to travel or who had strong government connections. Obtaining a passport was a time-consuming and difficult process for most persons.																																				e. Protection of Refugees										The government cooperated with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other humanitarian organizations in providing protection and assistance to refugees, returning refugees, or asylum seekers, as well as other persons of concern.Access to Asylum: The law provides for the granting of refugee status, and the government has a system for providing protection to refugees and asylum seekers. The National Refugee Assistance Committee, a joint committee under the Ministry of Social Affairs and Humanitarian Action, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, handled applications for refugee status. The committee received most of its operating budget from UNHCR.Employment: The law does not address employment for refugees, but various government decrees prohibit foreigners, including refugees, from practicing small trade activities and working in the public-transportation sector.Access to Basic Services: UNHCR-funded primary schooling was accessible to most refugees. Authorities limited access to secondary and vocational education for refugees. Some secondary education occurred at schools where refugees volunteered to teach or received payment from parents of refugee children.Although refugees had equal access to community health centers and hospitals, there were reports of refugees receiving discriminatory treatment at some hospitals, including insults by medical personnel and long waiting times for treatment without regard to priority relative to their medical conditions.Durable Solutions: Former Rwandan refugees could obtain resident status provided they had a valid Rwandan passport. Many Rwandans feared deportation if they received a passport, despite the assurances of local authorities and UNHCR this would not be the case.																																				f. Status and Treatment of Internally Displaced Persons										UN and government officials reported 40,329 of the estimated 264,000 estimated internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled the Pool region during the 2016-17 conflict had returned to their homes and villages; the government promoted their safe and voluntary return. Anecdotal reports suggested that IDPs who did not return to their home areas resettled voluntarily in other parts of the country. Other IDPs in the country included residents in areas affected by seasonal floods, who generally returned home when waters receded. The number of IDPs increased as flooding grew worse in recent years.																																				g. Stateless Persons										UNHCR reported that nearly 105,340 persons were at risk of statelessness in the country. As of August, the government issued approximately 2,000 birth certificates with UNHCR support to the Indigenous population.																																					Section 3.													 Freedom to Participate in the Political Process												    																																															The constitution and law provide citizens the ability to choose their government in free and fair periodic elections held by secret ballot and based on universal and equal suffrage.																																				Elections and Political Participation										Recent Elections: The government last held legislative and local elections in July, with reported irregularities in both legislative and local races. While the country has a multiparty political system, members of the ruling Congolese Labor Party and its allies retained 89 percent of legislative and 50 percent of local seats.For the July general election and the runoffs, most observers reported polling stations and electoral officials conducted their business professionally, while noting some logistical challenges, including partial distribution of voter cards, incomplete supplies, and the delayed opening of several polling stations. Civil society and political party representation was present inside polling stations. Observers, however, reported the heavy presence of security forces both inside and outside polling stations.In several neighborhoods, crowds protested at polling stations against bringing in outside voters, accusing them of ballot stuffing. One parliamentary candidate from a northern district was arrested for three days after a dispute with police, who prevented him from accessing the original vote count despite his legal authority to be present.Some opposition parties boycotted the election and the vote.The Constitutional Court in September invalidated the victory of the ruling party in favor of an independent legislative candidate in Makelekele neighborhood after having confirmed the ruling candidate’s victory in an earlier decision.Political Parties and Political Participation: Political parties and civil society groups faced restrictions on their ability to participate in the political and electoral process. The law conferred recognition on 55 of 200 parties. According to the government, the remaining political parties did not meet the nationwide representation requirements.There were unconfirmed reports of government funds being used to secure transportation and illicit votes, and for campaigning activities leading up to and during the two weeks of the legislative and local elections campaign. Since no official report was available on campaign financing, however, these reports could not be verified.Participation of Women and Members of Minority Groups: No laws limit participation of women or minority groups in the political process, and they did participate. Some voting sites on election day lacked accommodations to make polling stations fully accessible to persons with disabilities.The political process excluded many Indigenous persons. Reasons included their isolation in remote areas, lack of registration, cultural barriers, and stigmatization by the majority Bantu population (see section 6).																																					Section 4.													 Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government												    																																															The law provides for criminal penalties for corruption by officials.  The government did not apply the anticorruption law, however, and many officials engaged in corrupt practices with impunity.  There were some reports of government corruption during the year.Corruption:  Local and international organizations regularly accused government officials, including the president, his family, and senior ministers, of corruption.  The accusations generally alleged officials diverted revenues from their official portfolios into private, overseas accounts before officially declaring the remaining revenues.																																					Section 5.													 Governmental Posture Towards International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human Rights												    																																															Several domestic and international human rights groups occasionally faced government restrictions during their investigations and when publishing their findings on human rights cases.  Government officials were not cooperative with or responsive to international or domestic human rights groups.  According to Freedom House, some domestic human rights groups did not report on specific human rights abuses due to fear of reprisal by the government.Retribution against Human Rights Defenders:  In August several police officers were detained following accusations they had participated in an armed robbery of a woman known as “Mere Alice” in Brazzaville.  Videos of the officers’ interrogation circulated on social media, appearing to show the officers confessing and implicating a police captain in a series of armed robberies in Brazzaville.  Several days later, police officials held a press conference exculpating that captain of any involvement in the robbery of Mere Alice.  On September 7, a coalition of local human rights NGOs, led by the Congolese Organization for Human Rights (OCDH), called for a judicial investigation, independent of police, to formally investigate the series of robberies and the captain’s involvement.  On September 9, local press reported the captain had been arrested and detained on charges of abuse of office and arbitrary arrests.  On September 12, OCDH and human rights NGO Forum for Governance and Human Rights reported break-ins of their Brazzaville offices, including the theft of several laptops and documents.  The organizations alleged that “uniformed individuals” entered the offices to remove the materials.  Both organizations filed police reports, but as of October there had been no reported progress on the investigations.Among those arrested and detained after the March 2021 elections was Alexandre Dzabana Ibacka, the coordinator of a platform of human rights groups (see section 1.e., Political Prisoners and Detainees).  The government released Dzabana in July for medical treatment abroad pending trial due to serious deterioration of his health.Government Human Rights Bodies:  The government-sponsored Human Rights Commission is the government human rights watchdog and is responsible for addressing public concerns regarding human rights.  The commission had little effectiveness or independence, and it undertook few activities directly responding to human rights concerns.																																					Section 6.													 Discrimination and Societal Abuses												    																																																Women										Rape and Domestic Violence: The law prohibits rape and punishes rape with imprisonment. A new law passed in May addresses spousal rape, also punished with imprisonment. The law strengthens penalties and facilitates reporting for spousal rape, domestic violence, and sexual harassment. Court personnel reported no prosecutions under the new law due to need for the courts to institutionalize the law and a lack of reporting. The law is written to cover only women; in the country’s legal vernacular, “rape” is used exclusively to refer to women victims, while “indecent assault” is used to refer to male victims of rape. The law prescribes monetary fines based on the severity of the crime and between 10 and 20 years in prison for violators.Authorities enforced the law; however, judgments often took years to be rendered and penalties applied. NGOs and women’s advocacy groups reported rape, especially spousal rape, was common. The law prohibits domestic violence, with maximum penalties including prison terms and hard labor. The government generally enforced the law but was impeded by low reporting due to societal pressure to stay silent. According to court system observers, most of the reported cases came from women who had since left the country or who usually lived abroad.Sexual Harassment: Sexual harassment is illegal. Generally, the penalty is two to five years in prison. In particularly egregious cases, the penalty may be 10 years. The government did not effectively enforce this law.Reproductive Rights: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization on the part of government authorities.According to the Ministry of Health, 92 percent of women gave birth with skilled health attendants. Government officials noted these figures were based on populations in urban areas; women in rural or hard to access locations in northern departments faced geographic barriers and a lack of access to transportation infrastructure limiting their access to care. NGOs reported local health clinics and public hospitals were generally in poor condition and lacked experienced health-care staff.The government provided access to sexual and reproductive health services for survivors of sexual violence. Emergency contraception was generally available as part of clinical management of rape. The coverage was limited to the three large urban centers: Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire, and Dolisie.In 2017 the World Health Organization estimated there were 378 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Government officials cited limitations on women’s empowerment to make their own health decisions, geographic barriers, lack of qualified health-service personnel and of health centers, and a limited number of referrals by general practitioners as the primary factors influencing maternal deaths. Women sometimes died in labor on the way to the hospital in rural areas, especially in the north of the country. Women from both Indigenous and other geographically isolated communities suffered disproportionately from rates of obstetric fistula due to unattended childbirth. Despite the law mandating free emergency obstetric care and caesarian sections, women often had to pay for care before they received any procedures.In urban centers, women and girls generally had good access to menstruation products, either because they could afford them or had access to local and international NGOs that provided these products free of charge. As a result, there were no reports of girls’ education being interrupted or their exclusion from participation in other aspects of society. In rural areas fewer families had the money to buy items outright, but local and international NGOs worked to provide menstruation products.There are no laws or school rules banning pregnant girls from attending school, and they were generally not excluded from education or other services by the service provider. In urban centers, girls who were pregnant generally continued in school unless there were health concerns. In some circumstances, families removed their daughters from school in the case of pregnancy due to social expectations for motherhood, but this was not the norm. In rural areas it was more common for girls to leave school if pregnant due to family and social expectations that they no longer need school, and the next step is instead motherhood.Discrimination: Customary marriages, family laws, and civil laws enacted by the government control the rights of women, children, and extended families. Women are provided the same legal status as men under the law, and authorities enforced those laws. Individual bias and customary beliefs, however, contributed to societal pressures to limit the rights of women. Adultery is illegal for both women and men, although the penalty differs. Under civil law the husband could receive only a fine for adultery, while the wife could receive a prison sentence. Polygamy is legal, while polyandry is not. Women experienced discrimination in divorce settlements, specifically regarding property and financial assets. The law considers the man the head of the household, unless the father becomes incapacitated or abandons the family. The law dictates that in the absence of an agreement between spouses, men shall choose the residence of the family.Women experienced economic discrimination with respect to employment (see section 7.d.), credit, equal pay, and owning or managing businesses.																																				Systemic Racial or Ethnic Violence and Discrimination										The law prohibits discrimination based on ethnicity, but the government made little effort to enforce it.																																				Indigenous Peoples										Locally, the phrase “Indigenous peoples” refers to forest-dwelling communities that lived a seminomadic lifestyle and practiced a traditional socioeconomic system based on hunting and gathering of forest products. Most Indigenous communities lived in rural or isolated parts of the country with limited access to the government or its representatives. According to a joint survey by the government and the United Nations in 2017, Indigenous peoples represented 10 percent of the country’s total population, while other international and domestic NGOs reported figures of approximately 7 percent.The law provides special status and recognition for Indigenous populations. Additionally, the constitution stipulates the state shall provide promotion and protection of Indigenous peoples’ rights. In 2019 the government adopted six decrees on the Protection and Promotion of Indigenous Peoples. These decrees created an interministerial committee for the monitoring and evaluation of Indigenous rights, protection of cultural property, the status of certain civil measures, and promotion of education, literacy, and basic social services. The government continued a series of public campaigns to educate members of Indigenous communities, civil society, and government agencies regarding the six decrees.Nevertheless, according to local NGOs, geographic isolation, cultural differences, and lack of political inclusion marginalized Indigenous peoples throughout the country. NGOs and UN agencies reported members of Indigenous communities experienced episodic discrimination, forced labor, and violence. The UN special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, after a visit in 2019, reported that Indigenous peoples faced significant discrimination, exclusion, and marginalization, including in their access to health services, education, employment, and political participation. According to UNICEF, poverty levels remained high in Indigenous communities and a lack of access to social services remained the main socioeconomic hurdle for these populations. Other Indigenous communities living in more urban areas had greater access to social services but feared harassment by members of the majority Bantu non-Indigenous population. Government decrees in 2019 mandated free access to education until age 16 for all Indigenous children, regardless of whether they had birth certificates, yet education access remained a problem for many Indigenous youth due to discrimination.																																				Children										Birth Registration: Children can acquire citizenship from one citizen parent. Birth within the territory of the country does not confer citizenship, although exceptions exist for children born of missing or stateless parents or children born of foreign parents, at least one of whom was also born in the country. The government does not require registration of births but adjudicates births on a nondiscriminatory basis; it is up to parents to request birth registration for a child. Failure to register births could result in denial of public services such as education and issuance of national identity documents, including passports.Education: Education is compulsory, tuition free, and universal until age 16, but families are required to pay for books, uniforms, and health insurance fees. Boys were five times more likely than girls to attend high school and four times more likely than girls in high school to attend university (see also section 6, Women, Reproductive Rights).Child Abuse: There are laws against child abuse. NGOs reported child abuse was prevalent but not commonly reported to authorities. Authorities generally investigated these reports.Child, Early, and Forced Marriage: The law prohibits child marriage, and the legal age for marriage is 18 for women and 21 for men. According to UNICEF, 27 percent of girls were married before age 18 and 7 percent before age 15. Underage marriage is possible with a judge’s permission and with the permission of both sets of parents; the law does not specify a minimum age in such a case. Many couples nevertheless engaged in informal marriages that were not legally recognized.There was no government program focused on preventing early or forced marriage. The penalty for forced marriage between an adult and child is a prison sentence of three months to two years and fines. During the year the government did not prosecute any cases.Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law provides penalties for crimes against children such as trafficking, pornography, neglect, and abuse. The minimum age for consensual sex is 18. A lack of specificity in the law was an obstacle to successful prosecution because it does not address sale, offering, or procuring for sexual exploitation. The government generally enforced laws on child pornography when reported.																																				Antisemitism										There was a very small Jewish community. There were no known reports of antisemitic acts.																																				Trafficking in Persons										See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at  https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.																																				Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics										Criminalization: No law specifically prohibits consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults. The law prescribes a punishment of six months to three years’ imprisonment and a fine for anyone who “commits a shameless act or an act against nature with an individual of the same sex under the age of 21.” The language is ambiguous and was unclear whether this law includes same-sex sexual conduct between two individuals younger than age 21 as well. Authorities did not invoke the law to arrest or prosecute lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex (LGBTQI+) persons. On occasion, however, to elicit a bribe, police officers harassed gay men and claimed the law prohibited same-sex sexual conduct between adults.Violence against LGBTQI+ Persons: Local NGOs reported some violence, predominantly psychological and physical but also including instances of financial extortion, sexual abuse, and housing discrimination, by government authorities and private citizens against LGBTQI+ persons. Authorities investigated and punished these acts of violence. Surveys of LGBTQI+ persons by local NGOs indicated most violence was perpetrated by family members. According to local NGOs, incidents of violence toward LGBTQI+ persons rose due to economic hardships and forced confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Discrimination: No law prohibits discrimination against LGBTQI+ persons in housing, employment, nationality laws, and access to government services. The scope of discrimination was difficult to measure due to the fear of LGBTQI+ individuals to reveal their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics. Discrimination against LGBTQI+ persons remained widespread in health care, housing, personal safety, employment, education, family, and access to other social services.Availability of Legal Gender Recognition: Legal gender recognition, by which a government allows individuals to change their gender identity marker on legal and identifying documents to bring them into alignment with their gender identity, was not available. The lack of legal identity documents that align with their gender expression created significant problems for transgender and nonbinary persons in employment, education, housing, and other aspects of life.Involuntary or Coercive Medical or Psychological Practices Specifically Targeting LGBTQI+ Individuals: There were no reports of involuntary or coercive medial or psychological practices specifically targeting LGBTQI+ persons.Restrictions of Freedom of Expression, Association, or Peaceful Assembly: There are no specific restrictions on freedom of expression, association, or assembly beyond those experienced by the rest of the population (see section 2, subsections a and b).																																				Persons with Disabilities										Persons with disabilities generally could access education, health services, public buildings, and transportation on an equal basis with others, despite the absence of laws that specifically mandate access for persons with disabilities. The government provided limited official information and communications in accessible formats to persons with disabilities.The law prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities, including in employment and occupation, but authorities did not enforce these provisions effectively. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Humanitarian Action is the lead ministry responsible for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities. The government provides separate schools for students with hearing disabilities in Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire. The government mainstreamed children with vision disabilities and children with physical disabilities in regular public schools.																																				Other Societal Violence or Discrimination										Anecdotal reports showed significant societal discrimination against persons with HIV and AIDS. The law provides penalties for unlawful divulgence of medical records by practitioners, negligence in treatment by health-care professionals, family abandonment, and unwarranted termination of employment.																																					Section 7.													 Worker Rights												    																																																a. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining										The law provides for workers to form and join independent unions, bargain collectively, and conduct legal strikes. The law prohibits antiunion discrimination and requires reinstatement of workers dismissed for union activity.The government generally did not effectively enforce applicable laws. The government provided inspections or remediation. There are no penalties for violations.The law allows workers to form and join unions of their choice without previous authorization or excessive requirements, excepting members of the security forces and other services “essential for protecting the general interest.” The law allows unions to conduct their activities without interference.The law allows the Recommendations Committee, a government body, to intervene in labor disputes and recommend resolutions, which become legally binding if the parties to the dispute do not challenge it within four days.Workers have the right to strike, provided they have exhausted lengthy and complex conciliation and nonbinding arbitration procedures and given seven business days’ notice. Solidarity strikes or strikes regarding political matters are unlawful. Participation in an unlawful strike constitutes serious misconduct and can result in criminal prosecution and forced labor. Nonviolently occupying a premise also constitutes serious misconduct. The law requires the continuation of a minimum service in all public services as essential to protect the general interest, and workers’ refusal to take part is considered gross misconduct. Some employers used subcontracting and short-term contracts to circumvent laws prohibiting antiunion discrimination.																																				b. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor										The constitution prohibits forced or compulsory labor unless imposed pursuant to a criminal penalty lawfully mandated by a court. Penalties were commensurate with those for comparable crimes. The law, however, allows authorities to requisition persons to work in the public interest and permits imprisonment if they refuse. The government practiced forced prison labor, including of prisoners held for political offenses and for participating in illegal strikes.The government used mandatory military service to compel labor unrelated to military work. The law providing for compulsory emergency work allows the government to compel a broad range of work. Forced labor, including forced child labor, occurred (see section 7.c.), including in agriculture, domestic service, and market vending. NGOs in Bambama and Sibiti, in the southern part of the country, reported the majority Bantu population forced adult Indigenous persons to harvest manioc and other crops with limited or no pay and under the threat of physical abuse or death. Some reports alleged that hereditary servitude took place, but such reports were unverifiable. The government conducted an awareness campaign with a focus on government officials, NGOs, and members of the Indigenous communities regarding amendments intended to improve the legal regime governing the rights of Indigenous persons in the country.																																				c. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment										See the Department of Labor’s Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor at  https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/resources/reports/child-labor/findings/ .																																				d. Discrimination with Respect to Employment and Occupation										The law prohibits discrimination based on family background, ethnicity, social condition, age, political or philosophical beliefs, gender, religion, region of origin within the country, place of residence in the country, language, HIV-positive status, and disability. The law does not specifically protect persons from discrimination based on national origin or citizenship, sexual orientation or gender identity, or having communicable diseases other than HIV.Sexual harassment in the workplace was a problem. Women disproportionately worked in the informal sector and in lower-paying jobs, where they were less likely to benefit from legal protections. Reliable data on the gender wage gap were unavailable. Sexual harassment was rarely formally reported, but when it was reported, penalties were rarely applied against violators. A law enacted in May, however, covering spousal rape, domestic violence, and sexual harassment, was introduced to facilitate easier reporting and strengthen the legal basis for prosecution.The government did not effectively enforce applicable law and penalties were not commensurate with laws related to civil rights.																																				e. Acceptable Conditions of Work										Wage and Hour Laws: Workers in the public sector are accorded a national minimum wage, which exceeded the poverty line. The minimum wage for private sector employees exceeded the poverty line. No official minimum wage exists in the agricultural or informal sectors. The law provides for a standard workweek of 40 hours and provides for overtime pay for hours worked in excess of the 40-hour limit. The law does not limit the maximum number of hours one can work per week, although it calls for a minimum of 24 hours without work per week. The law provides for 10 paid holidays per year and 15 weeks of maternity leave. NGOs reported violations of wage, hour, or overtime laws were common in fishing, logging, quarries, and private construction sites.Occupational Safety and Health: The Ministry of Labor sets health and safety regulations that correspond with international standards. Inspectors are trained for both wage and hour and occupational safety and health (OSH) compliance. Workers have no specific right to remove themselves from situations that endanger their health or safety without jeopardizing their employment. NGOs reported safety violations commonly occurred in commercial fishing, logging, quarries, and at private construction sites.Wage, Hour, and OSH Enforcement: The Ministry of Labor enforced the minimum wage law, and penalties were commensurate with those for comparable violations. Penalties were rarely applied against violators. Minimum wage law does not apply to the informal sector, leaving the most vulnerable for underpayment without legal recourse.The government did not effectively enforce OSH laws. While health and safety regulations require biannual Ministry of Labor inspections of businesses, businesses reported the visits occurred much less frequently. The size of the inspectorate was not sufficient to enforce compliance with the law. Penalties for noncompliance of OSH laws were not commensurate for similar crimes such as negligence. Penalties were uncommon but were regularly applied against violators in egregious cases.Informal Sector: During the COVID-19 pandemic the number of workers in the informal sector rose from previous years. There were no existing credible data from the government, but international organizations estimated that approximately 65 percent of the workforce, overwhelmingly female, worked in the informal sector. According to the law, workers in the informal sector and part-time workers are covered by wage, hour, and OSH laws and inspections. The government, however, did not provide adequate social protections for workers in the informal economy.																																				    							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Respect for the Integrity of the Person																																							a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings																																																						b. Disappearance																																																						c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and Other Related Abuses																																																				Prison and Detention Center Conditions																																																																																				d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention																																																				Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees																																																																																				e. Denial of Fair Public Trial																																																				Trial Procedures																																												Political Prisoners and Detainees																																												Civil Judicial Procedures and Remedies																																																																																				f. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence																																																						g. Conflict-related Abuses																																																			Section 2. Respect for Civil Liberties																																							a. Freedom of Expression, Including for Members of the Press and Other Media																																																				Internet Freedom																																																																																				b. Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly and Association																																																				Freedom of Peaceful Assembly																																																																																				c. Freedom of Religion																																																						d. Freedom of Movement and the Right to Leave the Country																																																						e. Protection of Refugees																																																						f. Status and Treatment of Internally Displaced Persons																																																						g. Stateless Persons																																																			Section 3. Freedom to Participate in the Political Process																																																				Elections and Political Participation																																																			Section 4. Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government																																																	Section 5. Governmental Posture Towards International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human Rights																																																	Section 6. Discrimination and Societal Abuses																																							Women																																																						Systemic Racial or Ethnic Violence and Discrimination																																																						Indigenous Peoples																																																						Children																																																						Antisemitism																																																						Trafficking in Persons																																																						Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics																																																						Persons with Disabilities																																																						Other Societal Violence or Discrimination																																																			Section 7. Worker Rights																																							a. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining																																																						b. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor																																																						c. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment																																																						d. Discrimination with Respect to Employment and Occupation																																																						e. Acceptable Conditions of Work																																																									Tags																					Bureau of African Affairs																								Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor																								Republic of the Congo