Malawi grapples with human trafficking
Malawi is grappling with rising cases of human trafficking, endangering the lives of poor people, including women and children.
National Police spokesperson Peter Kalaya conceded in an interview yesterday that trafficking in persons is one of the biggest challenges among law enforcement agencies.
The cases mos t l y border on labour and sexual exploi tat ion, with perpetrators taking advantage of poverty, low education levels, unemployment and dwindling economic opportunities to lure victims with promises of better incomes either locally or in foreign lands.
Speaking in a telephone interview yesterday after officers from Bvumbwe Police Sub-Station on Monday nabbed four suspects accused of trying to traffic 65 people to Rumphi from Thyolo; Kalaya said while he could not provide data, the country was struggling with the problem.
“It is a huge problem in the country deducing from the cases we are handling in our various police stations,” said Kalaya.
In Mulanje, child protection coordinator Noel Chambo said about 23 children were this year trafficked to Mozambique.
“Most of those trafficked are girls who are promised to work as maids only end up as prostitutes in brothels while boys work in farms in Mozambique,” he said.
Traditional Authority (T/A) Ndanga of the district said traffickers are taking advantage of the hunger situation to entice parents to send children to work in farms in Mozambique.
Likewise, authorities in Machinga expressed concern with the persistent rise in human trafficking.
T/A Sale, whose area borders Mozambique, said he sees teenage boys, girls and women being trafficked to Mozambique.
“For the past six months, I have rescued over 100 people from traffickers who use the Sale-Mkwakwata route as a crossing point into Mozambique,” he said.
Machinga district assistant social welfare officer Romeo Chaheka attributed the human trafficking to widespread hunger affecting many households in the district.
Machinga Police Station spokesperson Western Kamsire said they have initiated the construction of a police border post in the area to address the issue.
In the Bvumbwe case, Limbe Police Station spokesperson Aubrey Singanyama said detectives were tipped off and they mounted a snap roadblock at Bvumbwe Trading Centre where a bus carrying the alleged victims was intercepted.
The suspected victims are 22 men, 17 women, 14 boys and 12 girls.
The 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report by the United States Department of State indicate that in 2023, Malawi identified 325 trafficking victims and referred 132 victims to care.
Ac cording to the report, traffickers exploit most Malawian victims by luring them from the South to the Central and North for forced labour in agriculture.
Centre for Human Rights Education, Advice and Assistance executive director Victor Mhango said it becomes difficult for police to rescue victims when taken out of the country and sometimes when rescued because it requires government to spend a lot of money to repatriate them from foreign countries.
On the other hand, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime programme o f f i c e r Maxwell Matewere noted that the first step in dealing with trafficking in persons is prevention, which entails that officers must be active in terms of monitoring, inspection and intercepting those at risk.
Trafficking in persons is a crime under Trafficking in Pe r sons Ac t of 2015, which prescribes punishments of up to 14 years imprisonment for offences involving an adult victim and up to 21 years imprisonment for those involving a child victim.
