Zimbabwe MP says a country that cannot protect its people is not a country at all

Full contribution:

*HON. MARIDADI:  Let me thank Honourable Nyamupinga for raising this motion and I want to thank all the Honourable Members who have debated this motion. I also want to thank Honourable Mahoka for strengthening the recommendations.

In February, I got a phone call from one of the ladies in my constituency who told me that she was summoned by the agency to go to Kuwait and requested for $20 for visa and finger prints. I requested that I meet the agents and she said it was possible. She was meeting with these agents at a nightclub mentioned by Honourable Nyamupinga known as Private Lounge. I drove to Private Lounge and this girl later phoned me to say that those people refused to meet me because I told them I was coming with you. I advised her that if they refused that I meet them then there is no reason why you should go to Kuwait. Up to today she is grateful for the advice that I gave her not to go to Kuwait.

At the Private Lounge, I got there around 4pm. What happens at Private Lounge is a sorry site. What pained me most was that – who is the owner? The surprising thing is that the owner of the Private Lounge is a Member of Parliament and the licence was obtained through fraudulent means. As Honourable Nyamupinga has said, as you get to Private Lounge, you find the girls are expected to undress and dance before men because they are given beer to drink and around 11pm, they completely undress and you see the Honourable Member who is the owner at the place. Like what Honourable Mahoka said, action should be taken and the Honourable Member should be reprimanded and be told that we are closing down his bar. Normally when I speak, I am someone who is straightforward and I will not beat about the bush and I will tell him to close his bar.

I am happy that the Vice President of the Republic of Zimbabwe Honourable Mphoko is here. If it is a British or American citizen who is beaten up, if he or she goes to their embassy, she sees the Ambassador there and then. The following morning the report will be before the Prime Minister, David Cameron. If a Zimbabwean is abused in countries like South Africa or wherever, as you get to the embassy and as they see that person through the CCTV, they start asking themselves what those Zimbabwean citizens want. If you tell them the abuse that you have gone through, what they ask is that what have you done for you to be abused.

We do not have representation for our children who are abroad at the embassies because the employees at the embassy do not treat them like human beings. That is why you find the media actually putting the headline like “sex slaves”. The editor writes about our children who were trafficked to Kuwait as sex slaves. That should not be happening Mr. Speaker Sir, this is a state owned newspaper that writes that. I think that is an issue that demands an apology from the state owned newspaper.

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