A victim of human trafficking who has returned from Kuwait where she had been taken to has implicated Criminal Investigations Department (CID) officers for Blantyre police as having aided her trafficking to Kuwait.<\/p>\n
The victim named Sergeant Bettie Katandula and detective sergeant Owen Chiumbuzo to be agents of Kuwait employment agencies.<\/p>\n
The victim (name withheld) told Malawi News that Chiumbuzo approached her in early April telling her that there were opportunities in Qatar (ahead of the world cup) and Kuwait and that could earn her $2,000 ( MK 1.4 million) a month.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me I could work there for two months and return home. This money is more than the profits I make in my business within the same period. It was worth going, I wanted to buy a good car,\u201d said the victim who got back home with support from friends and relations.<\/p>\n
The next day, he took her finger prints and she gave him K20, 000. Of this money, K15, 000 was for processing the police clearance report and K5, 000 for communication and scanning of the passport at an internet caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n
The police clearance letter (which we have seen) was indeed processed and sent back to the victim.<\/p>\n
He sent the money to his friend at Area 30 through mobile money services but said the process could take a week or two but assured her that women visa applications do not take long.<\/p>\n
On a Monday morning, she received a WhatsApp message from him informing her that he had her visa and air ticket ready. The following morning, they took a taxi to Manase where Chiumbuzo told her there was another agent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was Bettie Katandula another CID officer for Blantyre Police Station! I didn\u2019t question much because I was so excited with the trip,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She recalled that her flight was at 11am at Kamuzu International Airport the next day so she was supposed to leave that evening for Lilongwe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI left without telling anyone including close relations. I just told my workmates that I was going to Mzuzu on duty but no one had an idea of where I was going to,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Even though the Malawian immigration officers asked her too many questions about her final destination, she insisted that she knew where she was going and had contacts of the people to welcome her at the airport.<\/p>\n
She met five other girls from Malawi as she connected flights at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport saying there were over 20 girls from other African countries whose final destination was Kuwait.<\/p>\n
She noticed something was wrong when an immigration officer in Kuwait stamped her passport without returning it to her but rather led her to a room (at the airport) where there were many other girls waiting to be picked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are some shops at the airport where they sale Hijab and we all were told to put on that. Someone picked me up to a place which I can estimate to be 10 kilometres away from the airport.<\/p>\n
This was not my final destination I was to meet my sponsor (the one who sent my air ticket and processed my visa) at 17:00 hours the next day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
This was also the time she was told that she was going to work as a maid and will receive a monthly salary of $250 (K 175,000) and according to the visa she had, she was to stay indoors for two years with no right to get out.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though they insisted that I had agreed to this, I refused because I never signed for any agreement before I left Malawi. I told this agent that I wanted to return to Malawi. The money was too little as compared to what I make back home. She agreed to convince my prospective employer but warned this could be very costly,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She discovered that she had been cheated as the police officers had signed for the agreement on her behalf.<\/p>\n
Even though the prospective employer was very angry, he eventually gave in but demanded to have his air ticket money back.<\/p>\n
Even the agent who picked her up from the airport demanded for her commission since the prospective employer could not pay her.<\/p>\n
In total she had to pay an equivalent of K1.4 million in order to be released. She phoned friends and relations back home who tried to raise money for all this. One of her friend had to borrow money from loan sharks and she managed to return home 10 days later.<\/p>\n
When she got home, she reported the matter to Southern region police as she thought she could not get assistance at Blantyre police where the officers who processed her travel are stationed.<\/p>\n
Our sources within the police told us that some Area 30 officers came to Southern region police station for disciplinary hearing of the two but they are yet to come up with the resolution to the matter.<\/p>\n
Officer in Charge for Blantyre Police Station, Elobium Banda and Commissioner of Police for Southern region Demster Chigwenembe said they are not aware of the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not true. I don\u2019t think we even have these names at Blantyre police station. The OC from there has just told me that they don\u2019t have such names in their data base. Even the issue of these people appearing here for disciplinary hearing is not true. Officers from the headquarters can\u2019t come here without my knowledge,” said Chigwenembe.<\/p>\n
We managed to speak to Katandula who upon being asked to say her side of the story said, \u201cNo comment\u201d.<\/p>\n
Last week, Chairperson for Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC), Justin Dzonzi said the organisation is investigating the involvement of some law enforcement agents and other public officers in the recent spate of human trafficking cases in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already have information that some police officers and very influential people are involved. We are even aware that some of these agents are working for these people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A victim of human trafficking who has returned from Kuwait where she had been taken to has implicated Criminal Investigations Department (CID) officers for Blantyre police as having aided her trafficking to Kuwait. The victim named Sergeant Bettie Katandula and detective sergeant Owen Chiumbuzo to be agents of Kuwait employment agencies. The victim (name withheld) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26445","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=26445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26449,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26445\/revisions\/26449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}