According to research on concubinage in Zimbabwe carried out by the Research and Advocacy Unit (RUA), Zimbabwe should pass laws that deter practices of forced marriages and human trafficking which is fuelled by the economic crisis.
Within the global system of human rights there are a number of instruments dealing with the problem of human trafficking. But Zimbabwe has not used the existing laws and has failed to train the police to deal with cases of human trafficking and forced marriages.
The country has also failed to implement the General Assemblys Resolution 55/25 of
2000 to Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, despite the face that it is a source and transit country for women and children trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labour.
Women and children are trafficked from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi and Mozambique to South Africa through Zimbabwe. It is also a source country because Zimbabwean women and girls are trafficked for sexual exploitation in brothels to neighbouring Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia, says the report.
Some of the women who are trafficked are lured to Egypt, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada with false promises of employment. They end up in bondage for sexual exploitation.
Young women from poor backgrounds are particularly vulnerable as they are desperate for better opportunities outside the country.
The Global report on trafficking in persons reiterates that Zimbabwe does not have a specific provision on human trafficking.
And RAU sees the absence of such provisions as a legal deficit that makes it difficult to prosecute those involved. Despite the fact that the Zimbabwean Criminal Code criminalises sexual exploitation, the absence of a specific provision on human trafficking creates a huge deficit in the legal framework.
RAU points out in its report that the only way to deal with cases of human trafficking is through various provisions scattered throughout the Criminal Code, the Immigration Act, the Labour Act and the Childrens Act.
This fragmented approach makes the offence very difficult to prosecute and as a
result few prosecutions or convictions for trafficking in persons in Zimbabwe are recorded. This legislative void is compounded by governments denial of the gravity of the problem through its rejection of assertions by organisations dealing with the issue that human trafficking is a growing phenomenon, notes RAU.
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