A girl child rights advocacy organisation, Shamwari Yemwanasikana (SYS) has partnered Childline and Bindura University of Science Education to raise awareness on human trafficking at Zimbabwean borders.
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labor, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others.
According to SYS, the campaign was conceptualized following a realization that children and young women were being trafficked even within the borders of Zimbabwe.
In an interview with 263Chat, Girls Protection and Support Services (GPSS) Coordinator, Majorie Nhamoinesu said the campaign will raise awareness so that they young girls can identify cases of trafficking within the borders of Zimbabwe.
“So SYS is collaborating with government ministries, Zimbabwe Council of Churches and other organizations that respond to cases of trafficking are sensitizing communities. This campaign is targeting Chitungwiza only for now but we are hoping that with more resources we can stretch the campaign to other areas where cases of trafficking are rampant.
“We are mainly sensitizing so that they can identify cases of trafficking within the borders of our own country. Some of the cases that we are witnessing or that are coming to our attention include the cases of child marriage where we are seeing that poverty is causing young women and girls to marry before the age of 18 and some of them are being trafficked from their own places of residence to go to other places so that perpetrators take them away from their own families,” she said.
Nhamoinesu highlighted cases where girls below the ages of 18 are being taken from their places of residence especially in the rural areas.
“We have cases of cattle herders in rural areas taking girls to their places of work and most of the times the employers of these men don’t have enough knowledge about where these men come from or where they stay. So the children end up being taken and only go back home pregnant or with kids after many years. We are also seeing cases of trafficking whereby girls are being taken from their own homes to go and work as domestic workers where they are not paid and they are not given leave days and they are made to work without salaries. This is what the campaign is all about,” she added.
SYS appealed to the public to protect the girl child by identifying such cases and reporting them to the police so that the victims’ can be helped.
