The increasing challenge on human trafficking and influx of illegal immigrants!

Tanzania is facing the increasing challenge on human trafficking and influx of illegal immigrants, as this week on Monday the Guardian newspaper from London reports that Malawi children are being trafficked into Tanzania to work as forced labour or in the sex trade.

 

The report said that Malawi children are falling victim to human traffickers in Tanzania due to economic hardships which includes income poverty, jobless, poor working condition and extremely poverty into their motherland.

 

The report from the Guardian added that Walusungu Msondo a 10 years boy was first approached by traffickers while he was fishing at Lake Malawi .

 

"The foreigners were being directed by two local people who could show them where they could find young fishermen. When they found me and my colleagues at the lake, they coaxed us with some money and told us that they had well-paying jobs for us in Tanzania ," saysWalusungu.

 

The boy and his friends thought their poverty-stricken lives were about to change for the better, but instead it was the beginning of a nightmare. Walusungu lives in Ngala, in Karonga district, on Malawi 's border with Tanzania , from where the men had travelled in search of vulnerable children.

 

They said the children would earn good money if they came to fish at Lake Rukwa and Lake Tanganyika, both in Tanzania .

 

The men explained the arrangements for the trip, but when they instructed the youngsters not to tell their parents, some of Walusungu's friends changed their minds.

 

He decided to go because he thought he could earn good money. They were joined by others who had been recruited by traffickers operating in the Chilumba area, about 35km south of Ngala.

 

They were ferried across the Songwe river into Tanzania , and taken to Lake Rukwa , which is surrounded by thick forest. It was here that Walusungu realised he had been lied to.

 

There were many other children, some speaking different languages, and the traffickers told Walusungu he had to work nine hours a day catching fish. He was promised only USD88 for around 12 months' work.

 

He asked to leave but the traffickers would not allow it. Fishing on the lake can be dangerous, and Msondo says he saw children being eaten by crocodiles, including one of his friends.

 

Local community leaders say some Malawians are collaborating with Tanzanian traffickers and luring young children over the border. Mwirang'ombe, a community leader in Ngala, says he was "deeply shocked".

 

 "We have already lost a young man who was caught by a crocodile at Lake Rukwa ," he says, adding that he had reported the crime to the government but nothing had been done. "[The] government must do something because human trafficking is illegal."

 

His views are backed by Habiba Osman, one of the country's top human rights lawyers, who works with the Ecumenical Council of Malawi. She says a lack of a legislation on human trafficking is contributing to the increased prevalence of the crime.

 

"We don't have a human trafficking law in place, so this makes it difficult for the government to actively trace such cases … it's high time we put pressure on our lawmakers to put a human trafficking law in place so that we can address this," she says.

 

Osman says many children from Malawi are also taken to other neighbouring countries, such as Zambia , Mozambique and South Africa , where they are forced into the sex trade and/or domestic slavery.

 

Chief Wasambo of the Chilumba police says he knows unemployed young people are being coaxed over the border by Tanzanians. "Most youths are going there due to lack of activities [here] to earn them a living," he says. "The provision of business loans and creation of temporary jobs can positively contribute towards the fight against human trafficking here."

 

However, Haston Jaji, from the ministry of gender and welfare at Karonga district welfare office, says that although there have been confirmed reports of human trafficking, the number of cases had reduced due to government awareness campaigns.

 

The campaigns came too late for Chaston Mwafuliwa and Emot Msuku from Karonga district, who ended up fishing at Lake Rukwa along with Walusungu. They too saw people being killed by wild animals and crocodiles, and say others died of cholera due to poor sanitation.

 

 They say people had no access to clean water and there was little food.

"There were a lot of problems we were going through at the lake, apart from being financially exploited," says Emot. "Hunger was a big problem. We were sleeping in trees for fear of being caught by wild animals – they were plenty of them."

 

The boys, including Walusungu, were stranded there for 10 months, and the traffickers refused to pay them. Finally, one of the men drove them to the Songwe border, where he abandoned them. They made it back into Malawi , but Emot says many Malawian children are still in Tanzania .

 

"I can't go back to school," says Walusungu, "because this [fishing] is my bread and butter, though I am aware that my education is a milestone to a very successful life."

 Media reports on Wednesday said 45 illegal immigrants, believed of Somali and Ethiopian origin, died from suffocation in a truck in central Tanzania while on their way from Kenya to Malawi .

 

Speaking to Mirror Digest in an exclusive interview in Dar es Salaam recently the former Tanzanian Media Women Association (TAMWA) Executive Director Ananilea Nkya said that the influx of illegal immigrants is a huge challenge to the government and the society and concerted efforts were needed to fight the rampant problem in the country and Africa at large.

 

“Economic hardship always forced young men and women to go to exile to find a better employment and green pastures to earn their livelihood,” she said.

 

She said that although its illegal to traffic children under 18 years to work or other related activities but this have been common phenomenal into Tanzania due to poverty and lack of life skills inside and outside the country.

 

Nkya added that the problems that young men and women face in Tanzania it is almost common to other neighboring countries such as Malawi because respective government cannot address the common man problems effectively.

 

She said that in Tanzania are increasing economic hardships have been fuelled by unscrupulously leaders who cannot distribute the cake of the country to majority of people in the country which have forced many people including children into poverty.

 

Nkya further said that the problem of illegal immigrants is between the Police force and the society to prohibit illegal immigrants because it’s a transboundary issues.

 

On his part the private advocate Yuda Tadei based in the city centre said that the problem here in Tanzania is to implement the abiding laws that protect children from all different kinds of crimes include commercial sex workers.

 

He said that the Law of the child act of 2009 protect children with the all kinds of evil from the society or community but the main problem it’s for those who were given authority to implement the abide laws that protect children in Tanzania .

 

“We have the goods written laws in the mainland but the main obstacle is to implement those acts effectively to serve the interest of the public and the country at large,” he said.

 

Tadei added that corruption is another bottleneck to the government officials who were given a mandate to implement the given laws in the mainland.

 

He cited an example of the recently deaths of the illegal immigrants from Ethiopia who were found dumped in the forest, he cautioned on whether the authority from various entry or check points could not prevent the massacre?

 

Efforts to find Director of Immigration Department or any other officials found futile as the landline phones went unanswered which was same apply to the Minister of Home Affairs Emmanuel Nchimbi.

 

But the Minister for Women, Gender and Children Development Sophia Simba told this reporter that she was in the meeting with the Liberian President Ellen Sir leaf which she can’t comment anything.

 

Last year the US state department published a report that named Malawi as a source country for men, women and children to be trafficked for forced labour and sex.

 

The authors said the Malawi government does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but was making significant efforts to do so.

 

In October 2009, the UK 's Department for International Development (DfID) allocated £18,000 to an anti-trafficking project to protect children at risk in Malawi but the scheme ended in March 2010. Today, there are fears the problem is escalating.

 

Over a hundred illegal Ethiopian immigrants were found dumped in a forest in the central part of Tanzania on Tuesday, apparently abandoned by the one transporting them.

 

At least 43 of the lot were found dead, 72 alive but in life-threatening condition and only 11 in reasonably good health – and now at large.

 

Global Detention Project reports that Tanzania has been host to one of the largest refugee populations in Africa and is an important transit country for migrants heading to South Africa .

 

UNHCR meanwhile says conflicts compounded by famine in the Great Lakes region dramatically increased the number of refugees in Tanzania from 292,100 in 1992 to 883,300 in 1994, only to drop to just over 100,000 by January 2011. That was after the government took measures to deport illegal aliens.

 

However, Tanzania had recorded a decrease of 19 per cent in serious crime from January to December last year, compared to 2010 when the percentage was higher.

 

Tanzania has recorded at least 114 cases of illegal immigration and human trafficking from January to March, 2012.

 

Most of the illegal immigrants were from Somalia , Ethiopia , Sudan and Pakistan , he said.

According to IGP Mwema, a big number of illegal immigrants were caught on their way to South Africa to seek greener pasture.

 

A random survey conducted by this paper has found majority of commercial sex workers in the city centre from Buguruni popular bar sewa, Kibonga and Manzese Rambo found young girls between 13 to 16 conducting business with 4,000 to 6,000 price to customers hence majority of these girls are from Mtwara, Lindi, Mbeya and Tunduma.