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Moz denies trafficking claims
06/02/2008 12:57 - (SA)
Johannesburg - The Mozambican government has dismissed suggestions that 40 children recently intercepted by police were being trafficked.
Andre Cumbe, the deputy attorney general, told the daily Noticias that it had been established that the children were not being trafficked.
He said it was through media reports that the transportation of the children had been labelled as trafficking.
At the end of January this year, police intercepted a truck, which was carrying 40 children from the northern provinces of Nampula and Zambezia destined for Maputo.
At the time police sources were quoted in the local media as saying there were suspicions that the children could have been trafficked to Maputo and then later to South Africa.
Seven people who were arrested in connection with the case said they were taking the children to Maputo and Tete so that they would continue with their Islamic studies.
Islamic elders arrested
Cumbe said that the only crime the transporters of the children could have committed was that they had illegally made profits from transporting the children through the money paid by their parents.
The arrested individuals were Islamic elders of a Nampula-based Islamic madrassa.
They included Abdula Garcia, the head of the Hamza madrassa in Nampula city, Amade Mussa Bilaule and Amade Rachid Alfane, co-ordinator and secretary-general of the same madrassa respectively, and Felisberto Joaquim Pinga, the driver of the truck, which was transporting the children.
They said they had transported the children with the blessings of their parents, adding that they had written declarations to this effect.
Parents of the children had paid transport and food allowances for the children ranging between $100 and $150.
Among the allegedly trafficked children were two girls who were to continue with their Islamic studies at a centre in Maputo.
However, the police told the paper they were treating the case as trafficking until they verified the details.
Pedro Jemusse, police spokesperson in Manica province, said that poor parents could have been coerced into agreement for the trafficking of their children after promises of financial gains.
- SAPA
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