The Zimbabwean government has denied claims by the International Organisation for Migration that human trafficking is on the increase in the country. The IOM has said that because of both Zimbabwe’s location in southern Africa and also the economic crisis in the country, thousands of people have become vulnerable to exploitation by traffickers as they accept risky migration options.
Police in Zimbabwe have recently been successful in uncovering criminal gangs which have been trafficking young girls to China. Despite this success, an officer in the ZRP victims friendly unit said that trafficking was a reality in Zimbabwe “despite government’s denials.”
“We have dealt with five unique cases, three of them in Harare and two in Bulawayo but the problem is that we can not do anything to prosecute because there is no law to deal with that as yet,”
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NGO Amazing Grace Children’s Home is discovering that the highway between Maputo in Mozambique and Johannesburg in South Africa is a major route for trafficked children. The children’s home in Malelane, a major border crossing, which was launched with money from the international child-welfare agency Terre des Hommes in 2003 is at the frontline of caring for trafficked children;
“Around 15 new children who have either escaped or been dumped by the traffickers along the Maputo corridor are placed in our care every month. So, if that is the number falling through the cracks, then many, many more are being trafficked,” said Vusi Ndukuya from Amazing Grace Children’s Home.
“The AGCH is close to the Lebombo border post between South Africa and Mozambique, where much of the business of child trafficking goes on. It is complex and involves all sorts of people: officials to get people across the borders and drivers to transport them.
“Once the trafficked children who arrive here trust us, and they are not too traumatised, they open up and reveal stories that are awful in most cases. Some of them had been forced into labour, while others were used as sex slaves,” He said.
Margie de Monchy from UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency said;
“From what I know of the problem in South Africa, slave traders use the country’s cities as a transit point to Europe, or as a marketplace. Often the rural kids who are taken advantage of are offered the chance of an education, or a shot at a better life, so … they willingly go with the traffickers, but once they get to South Africa they become bonded. I know of instances in which they have been told they need up to US$14,000 to buy their freedom, which they never have, so they are forced into labour or the sex industry,”
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The Azerbaijani Deputy Interior Minister fighting human trafficking, Iman Necefov has reported that so far this year 67 victims of human trafficking were found by the government and 141 people were arrested. The figures are confused as they also allude to procuring and the running of brothels. The report also found that most of the victims were trafficked by relatives or friends to UAE, India and Turkey. Disturbingly 18 of the victims were deported from Azerbaijan and it is unknown whether they were sent back into situations which might expose them to the danger of being re-trafficked. The other victims were, however, cared for in a refuge which was set up jointly by the OSCE, the International Migration Organization and the Azerbaijani Government. To read more about this or related subjects, please visit APA by clicking here.

Activists in Canada have expressed fears that there will be an explosion of human trafficking in the country when the Winter Olympics comes to Canada in 2010. A committee of the federal government was warned that more needed to be done to avoid such a human rights disaster.
“A large influx of that hard currency and foreigners with a lot of time on their hands and a sense of impunity will essentially drive this industry,” said Benjamin Perrin of The Future Group, an anti-trafficking NGO. He also claimed that a government working group to establish a national strategy to combat human trafficking had little to show after four years of work.
“It’s a major embarrassment. We have a lot of catching up to do,” Perrin said.
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Istref Pelumbi head of Albania’s Roma Organization has called for an end of the trafficking of children from the country, a practise which badly effects the Roma community. Some reports indicate that as many as 5,000 children have been trafficked from Albania. The country still faces many severe challenges since the chaos of transition from the hard line communist regime of Enver Hoxha, and the trafficking of children into forced prostitution and forced begging, often of the disadvantaged Roma children, to Greece and Italy needs to remain at the top of the agenda. To read more about this and related subjects, please visit MPT Online by clicking here.