He never thought these things happen in real life, worse still here in Malawi and that they would happen to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife risked her life and our marriage for an equivalent of K350, 000,\u201d says the broken Chikopa (real name withheld), a resident of Blantyre.<\/p>\n
It all began like some joke. His wife told him that at her mother\u2019s prayer group, they advertised for job opportunities in Kuwait.<\/p>\n
\u201cI discouraged her from going. It sounded questionable that they promise to provide free everything and pay lots of money. I had an instinct that there was a hidden agenda,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, this pushed the wife to plan secretly. She had already made up her mind, despite the fact that she was several months pregnant.<\/p>\n
One evening, she got a call from an unknown man who instructed her to pay K20, 000 for her medical and police reports.<\/p>\n
Chikopa noted the phone number. He called it days later. He was shocked to learn from this coordinator that his wife had already submitted her passport for the processing of travel arrangements.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I confronted my wife, she confessed that she was indeed processing to go to Kuwait under her mother\u2019s influence. This was in honour of her membership to the prayer group. I told her to immediately withdraw her interest,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n
Chikopa assumed she had withdrawn as there was nothing suspicious going on.<\/p>\n
Details which Malawi News has gathered show that the leader of this prayer group who they call a prophetess takes advantage of the vulnerable women that patronise her prayer sessions. She encourages them to go to Kuwait \u2018to work\u2019.<\/p>\n
Apart from conniving with agents in Kuwait, the prophetess tells the women to be paying tithe as a token of appreciation to God for helping them to secure the Kuwait job. The women spend the night before departure at her house.<\/p>\n
On April 19 2016, Chikopa\u2019s wife disappeared. In the morning of April 20 2016, he went to the church office and posed as an interested client.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry sir, at the moment we are not sending men. We are only sending women aged 18-35. Some women will be leaving for Kuwait today at 9 am through Chileka International Airport,\u201d he was told.<\/p>\n
\u201cI found a woman and her two daughters there. I\u2019m sure they were there for the same issues. This touched me so much. Many Malawians are being exploited and getting into deep problems because of poverty,\u201d Chikopa says.<\/p>\n
He later established that his wife was among the girls that left on April 20 2016.<\/p>\n
When Chikopa confronted the prophetess, she told him that she had no idea that her wife was among the people in the group.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe claimed so. She sent us some money on our wedding day. She has been a friend to my mother in law. She assured me that she will try everything within her power to bring my wife back,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Go back and pray, harder. I will be praying for<\/p>\n
you too. I will keep in touch with your wife once they arrive in Kuwait,\u2019 \u201d promised the prophetess.<\/p>\n
The next day she told Chikopa that she had spoken with the wife but it was too late to bring her back as she had already been sold upon arrival in Kuwait.<\/p>\n
The agent had picked them up from the airport and stayed with them for several days. Different people went there to pick the women one by one. It appears these people were buying the girls from the agent.<\/p>\n
Her passport, luggage and phone were confiscated. Later, she managed to borrow a phone from a well-wisher and communicated to her husband about the situation.<\/p>\n
She was given Islamic clothing. She was sold to a family of a retired Kuwait soldier. It was a big extended family. Chikopa\u2019s wife woke up at 6 am and retired to bed at 12 mid night or beyond.<\/p>\n
There was no resting and very little food for her to eat. She was confined indoors.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer stories broke my heart even more. She was always crying each time she called. But I couldn\u2019t help, Kuwait is too far,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This was not her final destination as there was a likelihood that she could be sold to another person should her employers be unsatisfied with her performance.<\/p>\n
At this point, there was no communication from the prophetess and Chikopa resorted to reporting the matter to Blantyre police.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey told me point blank that they received many of such cases but they hadn\u2019t arrested anyone. They said they had no authority to investigate such cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis surprised me. The police is an arm of government that is supposed to protect all citizens and not side with criminals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have tried to follow up on this case after we learnt that the prophetess was arrested. Surprisingly, Blantyre police said the matter was at its headquarters,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Both the national police spokesperson and his deputy could not give the details of the case until three weeks later when deputy national police spokesperson Thomeck Nyaude said she had been released as there<\/p>\n
Francis Kasaila, told our sister paper The Daily Times this week that Malawi government currently does not have money to bring the women home at the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an expense that we didn\u2019t budget for. Therefore, we need to find ways of how we can find money to be able to support those that are being rescued from their employers in Kuwait,\u201d Kasaila said.<\/p>\n
He urged their families to buy them air tickets if they can afford.<\/p>\n
But Chikopa says his wife told him that they all have been assured that government will bring them back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been checking the air fares and the amount ranges from K486,000 to K681, 000 one way from Kuwait to Malawi,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Projects Officer for Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) Micheal Kaiyatsa says this issue qualifies as \u2018trafficking in persons\u2019 because it is involving people being transported outside the country with the intention to be exploited by other people.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll those involved including the suspected police officers should be prosecuted in accordance with the Trafficking in Persons Act,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n
He also bashes government for shifting the responsibility of repatriating those who have been rescued to relatives. The Trafficking in Persons Act puts the obligation squarely on the government to ensure that trafficked persons receive proper care, protection and assistance, including repatriating them to their homes, Kaiyatsa says.<\/p>\n
The Act requires the government to set up an anti-trafficking fund, which shall consist of money from the national budget, grants, donations and other sources.<\/p>\n
The fund is supposed to be used to provide assistance to trafficked persons, including repatriating them.<\/p>\n
It also requires the government to establish a national coordination committee chaired by ministry of home affairs, and comprising secretaries for gender, and justice, Inspector General of Police, commissioner for immigration, and director of human rights commission among others.<\/p>\n
One of the responsibilities of the committee is to coordinate and oversee investigations on alleged perpetrators and receive reports from police officers on investigations and prosecution of officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe issue of resources for repatriating survivors of human trafficking or alleged perpetrators not facing prosecution would not be a problem had government set up the fund and if the national coordinating committee was running as stipulated in the law.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe challenge we have is that we are content with passing laws, but when it comes to implementation we always look for excuses. This needs to change,\u201d Kaiyatsa observed.<\/p>\n
According to the United States\u2019 Department of State, Malawi is a source country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo a lesser extent, Malawi is also a destination country for men, women, and children from neighboring countries subjected to labor and sex trafficking and a transit point for people from some of these countries subjected to labor and sex trafficking in South Africa,\u201d reads part of the information on the department\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
It says Kuwait is a destination country for men and women who are subjected to forced labor and forced prostitution. It says the jobs include domestic service, construction and sanitation sectors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThough most migrants enter Kuwait voluntarily, upon arrival some sponsors and labour recruitment firms subject some migrants to forced labour, including through nonpayment of wages, long working hours without rest, deprivation of food, threats, physical or sexual abuse, and restrictions on movement, such as confinement to the workplace and the withholding of passports,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n
It further notes that many of the migrant workers arriving in Kuwait have paid exorbitant fees to recruiters in their home countries or are coerced into paying labour broker fees in Kuwait that, by Kuwaiti law, should be paid by the employer\u2014a practice that makes workers highly vulnerable to forced labor, including debt bondage, once in Kuwait.<\/p>\n
Globally an estimated 2.5 million people are trapped in modern day slavery, says the United Nations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He never thought these things happen in real life, worse still here in Malawi and that they would happen to him. \u201cMy wife risked her life and our marriage for an equivalent of K350, 000,\u201d says the broken Chikopa (real name withheld), a resident of Blantyre. It all began like some joke. His wife told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25191,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25187\/revisions\/25191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}