English
Kinyarwanda
The Rwanda National Police has revealed it arrested two people last week said to be part of the human trafficking ring.
The duo is identified as Oliver Nshizirungu a Rwandese and David Behakanira, a Ugandan national.
Behakanira is suspected to have been trafficking Rwandan girls to Uganda where they would be forced to sexual harassment in his hotel located in the Western district of Bushenyi.
Nshizirungu on the other hand is accused of brokering between girls and men…
Two of the victims said that Behakanira recruited them on promise that he would give them jobs in his hotel, but were forced to sleep with men as their only job, on arrival.
“We met in Nyabugogo where he told me that he wants girls to work in his hotel. He gave me money to look for travel documents and transport. I found him in Mbarara (Uganda), where he sexually abused me and confiscated my travel documents before taking me to Bushenyi where I was subjected to sexual harassment by different men, whom he said are his clients and that we have to please them in every way,” one of the victims, name withheld, lamented.
“These men would then pay Behakanira after abusing us,” she added.
She said the only way to rescue herself from the agony, was to trick his boss that he wanted to bring him other girls, which worked for her.
Another victim also accused Behakanira of subjecting her to sexual violence for months of working at his hotel.
The victims appealed to girls to always be vigilant when they are approached by people promising them jobs in foreign countries.
“These people, in most cases, want nothing other than making you their business tool especially sexually,” a victim said.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Theos Badege reiterated the need for anyone being offered a job to first consult with concerned authorities, families or friends not to become hostages of such illegal and inhuman business.
He revealed that they are working with other security agencies to trace other girls or victims of human trafficking wherever they may be, especially in Asian countries.
“Human trafficking is a new phenomenon in Rwanda, but we don’t take it lightly. We urge all those people who lost their contact with their family members living abroad to also report so that we find out if nothing unusual happened to them,” he added.
He observed that the human trafficking phenomenon has now taken a new twist where people are killed to remove some body organs for sale.
Rwanda National Police has rescued some girls in Uganda and Asia in the past years and intercepted 54 Bangladeshi nationals in Rwanda in 2010, who were being trafficked to Mozambique.
Article 252 of the penal code states that “Any person who abducts or causes to be abducted, arrests or causes to be arrested, detains or causes to be detained, transports or causes to be transported any person in order to make them slaves, sell them as slaves, force them into begging, illegally adopt them on payment of a consideration, take them in indecent pictures, in dangerous sports, in armed conflicts, live together as husband and wife for the purpose of torturing them or selling their organs shall be liable to a term of imprisonment of seven to ten years and a fine of Rwf5 million to Rwf10 million.
If the acts under this Article are committed at an international level, the offender shall be liable to a term of imprisonment of ten (10) years to fifteen (15) years and a fine of ten million (10,000,000) to twenty million (20,000, 000) Rwandan francs.
