A SENATOR has called for the enactment of stricter policies to deal with human trafficking syndicates duping desperate people by offering bogus international jobs.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
Midlands Senator Lillian Timveos (MDC-T) raised the issue on Tuesday in the Senate, while contributing to debate on a motion on the Zimbabwe delegation report on the 133rd Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
“Human trafficking is a menace and health hazard, and I feel that as a country, we should enact some legislation, scrutinise and find ways of beating these devious and bogus employment agencies that are out to fleece our innocent girls,” Timveos said.
“Some weeks back, we had some of our Zimbabwean girls who were lured by dubious employment agencies and promised jobs in some countries, but on arrival they were introduced into sex slavery and had no means and ways of returning to Zimbabwe.”
Timveos said it was now up to Zimbabwe to find ways of countering the tricks of the bogus employment agencies.
“Jobs are difficult to get in this country as employment is at its lowest, but let us scrutinise these advertisements when they are put in the Press and verify as the State whether the jobs really exist in that foreign land,” she said.
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Her statements came after Speaker of the National Assembly Jacob Mudenda and a delegation from the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired by Kindness Paradza, went to Kuwait last week on a bilateral visit. Once there, the delegation got wind that 32 Zimbabwean women were stranded in the Middle East country after escaping from their enslavers who had lured them with too-good-to-be-true job offers.
Mudenda on Tuesday told the National Assembly the delegation was advised of the desperate situation in which the 32 young women found themselves.
“Our going to Kuwait had nothing to do with rescuing those 32 unfortunate ladies, but after being told the horrendous stories that had taken place, the delegation then decided that we would not come back without those young ladies,” he said.
“We took a stand, which was accepted without question by the authorities from Kuwait, that we would not come back without those young ladies.”
