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Govt rapped for making citizens prone to trafficking
Tendai Mukandi & Itai Mushekwe, The Independent
(Zimbabwe)
June
23, 2006
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/viewinfo.cfm?linkid=11&id=4038
THE United States
has castigated government for making its own people vulnerable to
human trafficking through its globally condemned Operation
Murambatsvina, a State Department 2006 Trafficking in Persons
Report reveals.
Zimbabwe was
last year classified under Tier 2, a watch list of countries "assessed
as not fully complying with the minimum standards". According to
the latest report released on June 5 by Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, Zimbabwe has since dipped into the lowest classification of
countries said to have an appalling human trafficking record in
Tier 3 alongside Sudan.
"Zimbabwe showed
little political will to address its trafficking problem during
the past year," the report says. "Zimbabwean children are trafficked
internally for forced agricultural labour, domestic servitude and
sexual exploitation. Trafficked women and girls are lured out of
the country by false job or scholarship promises."
The report cites
government’s urban slum clearance blitz, which left more than 700
000 people homeless, as having exposed children to human trafficking
vulnerability.
"Government
placed many of its citizens at increased risk for exploitation as
a result of Operation Murambatsvina. Tens of thousands of people
remain homeless in the wake of the operation, which demolished ostensibly
illegal homes and businesses. An estimated 223 000 children were
affected and left vulnerable to trafficking."
Trafficking
in human beings is the criminal commercial trade in human beings,
who are subjected to involuntary acts such as begging, sexual exploitation
or unfree labour. It also involves a process of using physical force,
fraud, deception, or other forms or cohesion and intimidation to
obtain, recruit, harbour and transport people.
The United States
annual Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report
is a comprehensive report covering 158 countries analysing their
efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons or modern-day
slavery. Governments that meet the standards for elimination of
trafficking established in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act
of 2000 are placed in Tier 1. Countries assessed as not fully complying
with the minimum standards but making significant efforts to do
so are classified as Tier 2.
Meanwhile, the
US Embassy in Harare this week unveiled a US$18 000 grant to the
Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe to help with its Anti-Trafficking
in Persons Awareness Campaign.
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