Govt, lawyer condemn Chitipa slavery deal
Malawi Government has condemned the Chitipa slavery deal where a Tanzanian is suspected to have sold five Malawian boys to work on a farm in Tanzania.
The Nation on Tuesday reported of a deal in which Tanzanian Thomas Ndimbwa, 30, of Izuba Village in Ileje District, Tanzania is alleged to have sold five boys at K20 000 (US$48) each and after being arrested Ndimbwa has been referred to Tanzania for prosecution.
Reacting to the development on Tuesday, Minister of Information, Tourism and Civic Education Kondwani Nankhumwa said what happened is regrettable and there is need for the country to tighten its laws on human trafficking to ensure that culprits are brought to book in Malawi.
He said the laws should also consider the trauma that victims suffer in such deals.
“As government, we totally condemn the incident in Chitipa. But if the suspect has been sent to Tanzania because of the weakness in our law, then we need to review that,” said Nankhumwa.
Human trafficking law expert Habiba Osman said the slavery deal is a wakeup call for government to quickly come up with a comprehensive human trafficking law that will protect people and bring traffickers to book.
She said it is sad to note that the man who was involved in the slavery will have to be prosecuted in Tanzania and that the victims, will not get compensation for the trauma that they faced due to the fact that there is no law for them to claim.
“The lack of a specific law is hindering our Police and Judiciary from enforcing punitive measures for such a criminal activity. Trafficking is the second largest crime in the world, and profits generated from it are huge,” said Osman.
Malawi is one of the few countries in the Sadc Region that have not enacted a comprehensive law on human trafficking.
This is one of the serious issues Malawi and other countries in the world are suffering from. If we really have human rights activists on minority rights, this is the time to speak. Why Trapence and Undule, the emissaries of the Western Imperialists, waste time with Homosexuality while their own children, brothers and sisters are being sold as slaves? Does this not expose their syndicate of being bootlickers? Poverty, which Westerners inflict on Africa, is a source of slave trade? I know several African head of states who behave like chiefs who used to sell their own people to Arabs and Westerners as slaves. They are happy to associate with this primitive and heathen practice brought to civilised Africa by uncivilised, myeopic and primitive Europeans and Arabs to disturb our viable civilisation.