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Tighten up law on human trafficking
2008-04-07 09:39:57
By Editor
Recent reports by several UN agencies depict the southern African region as a spectre of active trade in humans.
The damning reports result from investigations by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the International Labour Organisation and the International Organisation for Migration, all saying human trafficking is going on at scary scales in the region.
They assert that this modern-day form of slavery is organised crime perpetrated by neatly connected syndicates that take advantage of economic and political instability in the region.
Traffickers often draw young men and women from a number of countries, including Tanzania, for eventual sale in South Africa.
The unsuspecting youths are promised a rewarding life in South Africa but are instead kidnapped, branded and sold into sexual slavery for a paltry sum.
The UN reports that female slaves usually end up in South African brothels or being used in pornographic films.
Their male colleagues with a bit of luck are forced to work in mines or farms for little or no pay, while the rest are commonly murdered for the removal of their genitals for use in grisly witchcraft rituals!
Some reports link the rising wave of this unique kind of barbarism to the upcoming FIFA World Cup, which South Africa hosts in 2010.
However, it appears the problem is less about these symptoms of frightening levels of human trafficking besetting the region but about failure by the law to combat the gory crime.
Quite surprisingly, the UN laments that not a single country in southern Africa has specific anti-human trafficking legislation in place.
Even in those countries said to have been more advanced than the rest by enacting such laws like South Africa and Mozambique, the police and the judiciary have failed to deal with the problem to satisfaction.
South Africa is due to become the first country on the continent to host the FIFA World Cup and it is widely feared that bigger numbers of foreign youths will be coerced into prostitution.
An IOM report says at least 1,000 Mozambicans are smuggled into South Africa monthly at a fast-rising price as the World Cup draws closer.
That makes the crime one of the world’s most lucrative trades, surpassed only by drug and gun trafficking.
This is horrific news that should jolt the international community into urgent action specifically meant to arrest the trend.
A re-emergence of any form of slave trade this late is simply unacceptable and every effort must be made to guard human civilisation against it.
Urgent measures should be taken within the framework of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) to ensure that each member state has legislation able to tackle the problem so that law enforcement agencies won`t find themselves hopelessly hamstrung when it is time to wage war against the crime.
Stiffer laws would make it difficult for the syndicates to operate with impunity.
With functioning regional law enforcement networks, those cashing in on human trafficking will soon be looking for more decent things to do for a living.
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