Gender activists are expected to stage a peaceful march in Harare on Wednesday to demand an end to human trafficking amid reports that hundreds of Zimbabwean women have been turned into slaves and commercial sex workers in some Arabian nations.
The Zimbabwe Women in Politics Alliance in conjunction with the Zimbabwe Activists Alliance and other organisations are set to march to the Kuwait Embassy to present a petition calling for the immediate return of women that are still in Kuwait against their will.
Lynnet Mudehwe of the Zimbabwe Activist Alliance said women rights organisations have decided to break their silence and speak out against the practice. The march will be running under the theme "Bring Back Our Girls From Kuwait."
A few weeks ago seven Zimbabweans suspected of trafficking nearly 200 women from Zimbabwe to Kuwait were granted bail pending a trail in Harare for allegedly transporting the women to Kuwait after promising them good jobs.
Human trafficking is the illegal movement of people, typically for the purposes of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation.
Although a few women have since been repatriated back to Zimbabwe, many more remain trapped in the Arab state. Efforts to get comment from the Kuwait Embassy in Harare on the issue were fruitless.
Mudehwe urged those offered lucrative job offers overseas to verify and investigate the offers before taking up the positions ‘”because if it’s too good to be true then it probably is.”
"Our hope is that all those women that are being held against their will in Kuwait are returned home immediately, and we are calling on the government of both Zimbabwe and Kuwait to put their heads together and repatriate those held against their will," said Mudehwe.
