Source: Daily News
About 500 secondary school students in Mwanza Region have been enlightened on the evil wrought by human traffickers and what to do to avoid being hoodwinked into falling into the traps of criminals who sell fellow human beings like cows, goats and sheep.

This is wonderful effort by Saseni Media Company, which saw students as easy targets for morons in the criminal underworld.

Students, especially the girls who fail in their final examinations, often get caught unwittingly in the nets of traffickers and get sold overseas. Although the problem is not pronounced at the moment, it exists.

A few years ago, an Interpol report implicated some Tanzanians in human trafficking. The villains are still in business today. The trade involves the selling of mostly children, girls and young women. The victims are sold into slavery and servitude.

Girls as young as 14, who may include students, are lured with promises of money and good life overseas, but once they get there, their passports are confiscated and most girls are sold to brothel owners.

In the brothels they are forced to engage in prostitution. Already, the government has advised young Tanzanian girls to think twice and even seek advice from relatives before accepting offers to travel abroad on promises of a good life. Victims of human trafficking face atrocities you might never imagine.

After being promised good jobs abroad most victims end up in slavery. As mentioned before, upon arrival abroad the victims’ passports and money are confiscated. In most cases they are given new names.

The victims, all of whom may be naïve, vulnerable children, also lose birth certificates, identity cards and any other documents of citizenship. They are often kept closely guarded and locked in a room when not accompanied.

Some of these poor souls are delivered to buyers who need cheap domestic workers in homes in China, Thailand, the Arab World or elsewhere. Others, especially the girls, are sold to ruthless masters.

They become comfort women -- much to their astonishment. So, parents in this country should be aware that children sold into slavery can also be turned over to brothel owners for sexual exploitation, forced labour, slavery, servitude or removal of organs.

Now, the last item here should shock even the hardest hearts. But this is not the end of the story. Some victims of human trafficking have been killed in human sacrifices to placate angry gods by superstitious elements whose activities are akin to those of demons.

And in some places victims are sold like cattle in secluded locations. Some poor parents are easily hoodwinked by child traffickers into handing over their children to the morons. Never hand your son or daughter to strangers who tell tall stories about good living abroad.

You might never see that unfortunate child again.

Marketing human beings like a commodity was banned through the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, but it is still practiced behind closed doors. 

By The Editor

• Africa
• Tanzania