Govt to roll out anti-human trafficking teams

GOVERNMENT is working on rolling out provincial anti-trafficking teams as the fight against human trafficking of mainly women and youths intensifies, a senior civil servant has said.

Secretary for Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Mr Melusi Matshiya told journalists here recently that an Anti-Trafficking Inter-Ministerial Committee (ATIMC) was already in place to look into the cases of trafficking in persons.

He said the ATIMC was chaired by his ministry and comprised representatives from key line Government ministries and departments.

“As part of its policy direction, the Zimbabwe Anti-Trafficking Inter-Ministerial Committee has put in place provisions for the establishment of Provincial Anti-Trafficking Taskforce teams,” he said.

“The ATIMC is the national coordination body on trafficking in persons.

“The provincial anti-trafficking taskforce teams mimic the ATIMC, but are constituted at provincial level coordinating the national response at that level. To date, the Government of Zimbabwe successfully constituted five such provincial task teams for Bulawayo Metropolitan, Mashonaland East, Mashonaland Central, Manicaland and Masvingo provinces.

“These were constituted through two-day training workshops for the nominees. It is worth noting that the trainings were supported by some of the Government’s partners, including the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

“Plans are underway to constitute provincial task teams for the remaining provinces.”

Mr Matshiya said Government was working on data collection trainings of trafficking in persons.

He said so far they have had two trainings in Harare and Mutare targeting community front line respondents to trafficking in persons.

“They include labour inspectors, social workers and representatives of civic society organisations from within the above mentioned districts,” said Mr Matshiya.

“The importance of Trafficking in Persons (TiP) data collections training cannot be overemphasised in ensuring a robust national response and evidence based programming.

“A total of 15 labour inspectors, 18 social workers and four representatives of civil society were trained during the two workshops. Each of the workshop was conducted over two days being facilitated by IOM and UNODC, members of the ATMIC and TiP secretariat.”

Mr Matshiya said to enhance effective administration of justice, capacity building trainings have also been conducted for magistrates and prosecutors to help them better respond to cases of human trafficking brought before the courts.

He said so far 10 regional magistrates and 19 prosecutors had benefited from the trainings.

“The government continues to ensure that measures are put in place for re-integration of the Victims of Trafficking (VoT) back into their communities,” he said.

“A number of strategies are being implemented to make sure the VoTs are properly reintegrated and have a fresh start of life considering that most of them will be having no secure livelihoods upon arrival back into the country.”