Trafficking Mr. Speaker Sir, as evidenced in the definition has three constituent elements, the act, which is the recruitment, the transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons. Number two, means threat, use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception and abuse of power for what purpose? It is for the use of forced labour, slavery or similar practices, removing of organs and also sexual exploitation.
Let me say from the onset, that the issue of the girls who were trafficked to Kuwait did not start when Mr. Speaker brought the girls. It actually started on the 12th April, when your Committee on Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development invited the first nine girls who came back from Kuwait. We invited them to appear before the Committee but unfortunately we were advised, I think it is in the Standing Orders, by the Clerk that we are not supposed to publicise and make sure that it is known out there for the purposes that the cases were before the courts. Do we have these courts to suppress our girls? – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, Hear.] – Are we having these courts so that when someone commits a crime, they rush to court so that once it is before the courts no one talks about the case? I condemn that type of policy; whether it is a law, we are requesting your relevant committee to look at this law and do away with it because it now looks like it only started when the noise also started yet it had already started. I think whatever was said by these women was recorded in Hansard. Without covering themselves, they were brave enough to sit there and talk about the abuses that they went through in the Committee. I think there is need now that that the report be tabled before this House. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, I will now move on.
Let me take this opportunity to thank you, I would have loved to read it in the presence of Hon. Mudenda, but all the same, let me take this opportunity to thank you for the role you played in the repatriation of our women who were stuck in Kuwait. Indeed, you played a fatherly role. When we met you at the airport, Mr. Speaker Sir, on the day that the women arrived, when I heard that they were coming, I took it upon myself to drive from my constituency to the airport to receive you and and the girls. Surely, when I saw the Speaker, I did not only see the Speaker of the National Assembly of Zimbabwe but saw a father, not only a father but a caring father … – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, Hear.] – when I received the Speaker who was leading the delegation. We thank you indeed from the deepest parts of our hearts, we uphold you in the highest esteem Mr. Speaker Sir.
The role played by the Government, I would want to mention that when I say the Government, I want to single out the Embassy of Kuwait where the Ambassador was sitting with this problem for a long time. Writing to his Ministry, the Head Office and no action was being taken as no resources were being disbursed to him in support since he had become the safe house that was looking after the girls, those that had managed to escape from their so-called employers or sheiks who were abusing them.
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