Disputes - international:
demarcation is currently underway with Burkina Faso
Refugees and internally displaced persons:
refugees (country of origin): 6,300 (Mauritania) (2007)
Trafficking in persons:
current situation: Mali is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking; within Mali, women and girls are forced into domestic servitude, agricultural labor, and support roles in gold mines, as well as subjected to sex trafficking; Malian boys are found in conditions of forced labor in agricultural settings, gold mines, and the informal commercial sector, as well as forced begging both within Mali and neighboring countries; boys from Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, and other countries are forced into begging and exploited for labor; adult men and boys, primarily of Songhai ethnicity, are subjected to the longstanding practice of debt bondage in the salt mines of Taoudenni in northern Mali; some members of Mali's black Tamachek community are subjected to traditional slavery-related practices rooted in hereditary master-slave relationships, and this involuntary servitude reportedly has extended to their children
tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - the government acknowledged that human trafficking is a problem in Mali, but it did not demonstrate significant efforts to prosecute and convict trafficking offenders; although the government identified at least 198 trafficking victims during the year - 152 of whom were Malian children in prostitution - it prosecuted only three trafficking cases and convicted two trafficking offenders (2011)