Pair jailed 20 years for human trafficking
SUSPENDED police officer, Forward Mashonganyika and his niece Tendai Muswe were yesterday jailed for an effective 20 years each for trafficking three women to Oman where they were turned into sex slaves.
The two were convicted of the three counts after a full trial before Harare regional magistrate Mrs Estere Chivasa.
For the purposes of sentencing, the first two counts were treated as one and the magistrate handed out a pair of effective 10-year terms to each of them.
Muswe is serving three years in prison for a similar offence.
The State prosecutor Mr Ngoni Kaseke proved that in February 2022, Mashonganyika connived with Tendai Muswe and Hassan Mohammed Ali based in Oman to traffic unsuspecting Zimbabwean women to that country for labour and sexual abuse.
They created a WhatsApp group where they advertised non-existent lucrative jobs in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
He recruited three victims after promising them high paying hotel jobs, coupled with good working conditions in Dubai and the victims fell for the lies.
Mashonganyika processed visas, air tickets as well as medical examination reports and facilitated transportation of the victims from Zimbabwe to Oman, instead of Dubai, as had earlier been promised.
The victims only realised that they had been duped upon arrival at Muscat International Airport in Oman.
Upon arrival in Oman, the victims were received by Hassan Mohammed Ali al Shihhi, who confiscated their passports and drove them to his base.
The victims were handed out to work as house maids and were subjected to domestic servitude, working around the clock with no pay.
They were made to feed on left-overs and were sexually and physically abused.
The matter came to light when the victims reported their ordeal through Interpol and relatives back home, who in turn reported the matter to police for investigations, leading to the arrest of Mashonganyika.
When they arrested Mashonganyika, the police searched his house and discovered payments sent from his accomplice, Hassan Ali al Shihhi in Oman through Money Gram money transfer agency.
The victims were located and repatriated.