Experts search for sold Nakonde girls

IOM Chief of Mission Andrew Choga said the organisation will work with the police, immigration department and other Zambian security wings to trace the girls in Tanzania and bring them back to Zambia.
The Daily Mail yesterday exposed an apparent child trafficking syndicate in which Tanzanian businessmen have allegedly bought 11 girls aged between 11 and 17 at K36,000 each from some parents in Nakonde.
The parents of the girls have since bolted for fear of being arrested by police.
Four of the 11 girls have been rescued by a combined team of Zambian security wings.
“This is a sad story. We will immediately go to the area [Nakonde] to independently investigate,” Dr Choga said.
He said when IOM concludes its probe, it will alert its Tanzania office to find and rescue the girls.
“We will retrieve the girls and then take them through a process of medical check-ups and counselling before we re-unite them with their parents,” Dr Choga said.
He said IOM will also equip the girls with skills so that they are re-integrated into society.
And Dr Simbyakula said the police will follow up the issue to its conclusion.
“The police will investigate the matter and if indeed it is a case of child trafficking, then the law will take its course,” he said.
In a separate interview, Ministry of Foreign Affairs permanent secretary George Zulu described the incidence as “modern-day slavery”.
Mr Zulu said it is shocking and abhorring that some parents could sell their own children.
He called for co-operation in fighting the vice.
“The governments of Tanzania and Zambia must agree to bring back the girls. There is no alternative. This is a form of slavery,” he said.
According to Nakonde District Commissioner James Singoyi, it is suspected that the children are being engaged in illegal sexual activities although they were being taken to Tanzania under the pretext that they would work as housemaids.
It is not clear where exactly the children are but it is thought that most of them are living in Dar-es-Salaam.
Impeccable sources, whose names the Daily Mail has withheld, confirmed that one of the parents who have since been released from custody testified that the children are sold in Tanzania.
The source said interviews with the children who were retrieved from captivity yielded little results as some had forgotten their language and others said they had been staying with “relatives” in Tanzania.
Tewele village is 40km from Nakonde and 1km from the border with Tanzania.
The Zambians living along the border are culturally intertwined with Tanzania.

Zambia Daily Mail