Every Rwandan is entitled to fight against human trafficking- ACP Badege

The Assistant Commissioner of Police Theos Badege has focused on the role that every Rwandan is required to play as to prevent the human trafficking activities that have been reported in few past years. He said that during a weekly show that took place in the studios of Isango star but heard in other six radio stations countrywide.

Another speaker was the journalist Joseph Hakuzwumuremyi from an the online Umuryango.com. ACP Badege started by clarifying the legal framework that defines and punishes the crime. The Law 250 defines human trafficking crimes as any activity involving people who collect, sell and/or exploit human beings for self enjoyment. These crimes dehumanize and destroy human integrity.

ACP Badege Theos added that the criminals choose the source where to take people they aim at selling, they also have a transit areas ( be it a country or any other geographical entity) and thereafter, they have a place where to sell the humans.

According to the statistics most of the victims are girls  who are attracted by the so called well wishers who take abroad promising decent jobs. They are aged between 16 and 20 years.

Arrived in the foreign countries, the girls finally find themselves enslaved in sexual immorality. ACP Badege said that in 2013, Rwandan national Police has arrested 12 young girls before being brought  and sold in Uganda.

ACP Badege said that one of the key strategy to maintain is to hinder the criminals to make Rwanda one of  the three areas highlighted above, meaning the source, the transit and/or the market.

Journalist Joseph Hakuzwumuremyi said that one of the reasons that lead to this sad reality relates to poverty whereby girls who were raised in poor families become attracted by the so called improved living conditions but become induced into such crimes unknowingly.

He also said that the current living conditions whereby technology has made people busier than before, bring in the situation whereby the youth consult the technological tools for advice and therefore become victims of badly motivated people who involve them into such misbehaviors.

ACP Badege said that the ongoing globalization has played a significant role in spreading some of the negative components of different cultures through internet.

Another issue raised by Solange Ayanone about to know whether such crimes are not committed in Rwanda internally, pointing the finger to the housemaids who are sexually enslaved by their masters. ACP Badege responded that all of these issues are part of the human trafficking crimes to fight against by every Rwandan.

Listeners intervened and raised other cases whereby some family members send their children to sell eggs and other commodities in streets of Kigali  or in  other big cities of Rwanda.

For Joseph, one of the strategies to adopt as to stop these crimes from spreading is to set up a working syndicate that will defend and advocate  for the rights of all people who are likely susceptible to be victimized including housemaids.

At the international level, journalists debated about the recent law set up in Sierra Leonne as to punish anyone who will be found guilty to hide an EBOLA ill persons for one or another reason.

This weekly show is coordinated by the Institut Panos Paris and ARJ( Association Rwandaise  des journalistes). It aims at debating about key points that characterized the weekly news both in Rwanda and abroad.

UM– USEKE.RW