Burundi human rights groups say about 800 young girls and women have been taken to Gulf states to work as household slaves since October.
Pacifique Nininahazwe, a Burundian civil society activist who spoke to Independent Media from Europe where he is exiled, claimed more than 90 girls were sold through a local NGO with the complicity of the ruling party CNDD-FDD.
Rights groups said even minor girls had been targeted by human trafficking allegedly undertaken by the NGO Royal Services, which several sources claimed was close to several government officials.
Sources cited by the rights activists said some girls, aged between 13 and 18, had been forced to lie about their true ages so they could obtain travel papers.
According to some of the girls who’ve spoken out, once in Oman or Saudi Arabia, they were sold like objects to different masters.
“I was sold after six months to another master,”a girl who survived the trade told the press in Bujumbura on Friday, after the police announced they were investigating the trade.
This victim said when she’d arrived in Oman a year ago, she’d worked for two masters, and was treated like a slave.
“I had no right to go out. When you arrive your passport is kept by the masters. They don’t want you to go out. One needs to work hard carrying heavy objects and some of the workers are obliged to prostitute themselves,” she said.
The manager of Royal Services, Ali Ndikumana, said his company was registered in Burundi and in Oman, and he worked closely with officials. He said the Foreign Affairs Ministry was aware of the work his outfit did and they had permission to recruit potential migrant workers throughout Burundi.
But Burundi’s foreign affairs minister, Allain Aime Nyamitwe, said there was no link between his ministry and Ndikumana’s organisation and Burundi had no memorandum of understanding with the countries where these women were being sent to work.
Burundi interior ministry spokesman Terence Ntahiraja said Royal Services was not registered in Burundi and this meant its activities were illegal.
In October, officials mooted the possibility of sending women abroad to work in order to generate funds after donors closed down funding for Burundi as a result of the country’s political crisis.
Rights groups claim some women and girls who refused to register for work in Gulf countries faced threats from the ruling party’s militias and intelligence agents who work closely with the ruling party in rural areas.
UM– USEKE.RW
