adminPatrick Chitumba Senior Reporter
SCORES of children are smuggled into South Africa from Zimbabwe everyday as child traffickers especially omalayitsha take advantage of lax immigration systems at the borders.Zimbabwe’s Consular-General in South Africa Godfrey Magwenzi said in view of this, authorities need to tighten the movement of minors across the border. This comes in the wake of new measures that have been adopted by the neighbouring country that include the need for the production of a child’s unabridged birth certificate.
He said Zimbabwe needs to consider new regulations to deal with the problem. “There is need for Zimbabwe’s department of immigration to control movement of children at the borders so that we know that the people accompanying children are the rightful parent’s or custodians,” Magwenzi said.
“We should be doing enough to curb child trafficking on our borders. We need a new regulation in Zimbabwe. So I understand the context in which South Africa now makes it a requirement for an unabridged birth certificate for children travelling with parents. They want to control movement of children,” he said.
The consular-general questioned the logic behind some parents’ decision to bribe omalayitsha with amounts going to as much as R2,500 to have their children smuggled into South Africa when a passport costs only $53.
He said some children are made to crawl under the fence as they cross into South Africa.
He made reference to the 2012 incident when 19 Zimbabwean children were detained for two months at a home in South Africa after a foiled attempt to smuggle them into the neighbouring country by their parents and relatives. “For two months we had to search for their parents who were in Cape Town. Some missed school until the time we repatriated them back home. Right now some children are dumped at bus stations or shopping malls by parents or guardians and we struggle to find them before repatriating them and it’s a problem for us,” he said.
Meanwhile, this week, South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs provided a grace period to allow children to travel with parents or guardians without an unabridged birth certificate until the end of September 2014.
Online Reporter