More than 356 women and girls are victims of human trafficking since January 2017. Cases of people who leave families are observed in Bujumbura popular neighbourhoods. Some women decide to abandon their families to go to the Gulf Countries.
Human trafficking phenomena is not new in Burundi: Victims of human trafficking in 2016
The most popular neighbourhoods namely Kinama and Kamenge are the ones that suffer most from human trafficking. Timothée Niyonkuru is a father of one child and a husband of a victim of human trafficking. He tells us how his wife clandestinely departed for the Gulf countries but was fortunately arrested in Kirundo and brought back. “My wife clandestinely went last Friday. I got a message early in the morning telling me goodbye. She was later arrested in Kirundo Province, trying to cross the border”.
Niyonkuru’s wife has abandoned her husband and a small child who is one year and two months old. “She stopped breastfeeding two weeks before telling me that she doesn’t feel well. I didn’t know she has a plan to go”, says Niyonkuru.
Niyonkuru asks the government to take appropriate measures to discourage human trafficking.
Mbarubukeye Prime, chairman of a local NGO fighting against human trafficking (ONLCT où est ton frère) asks the government to find a solution to this problem of human trafficking. “The number of human trafficking victims is increasing. Since January of this year, more than 356 women have been recorded among them 17 women only in November. The government have to take this problem seriously and find a solution”, he says
He also says those women are victims of serious human rights violation. “Most of them are mistreated in the Gulf countries. We ask the country to intervene so as to protect its citizens”.
Mbarubukeye says they wrote to the Head of State a memorandum referred to as “Bring back our children” to ask for the repatriation of all the victims of human trafficking.
The police say they try to stop human trafficking but it is very difficult as those who do it have invested a lot of money in it.
Iwacu has tried to contact the ministry of foreign affairs to know how they are dealing with this problem, but without success.
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