Swakopmund
The Prime Minister Sara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila has urged Namibian lawmakers to intensively caucus on human trafficking to adopt strategies that will enhance the detection, investigation and successful prosecution of human traffickers.
The PM was addressing national and international law organisations and criminal justice practitioners currently attending a five-day training of trainers’ workshop on trafficking of persons that started on Monday in Swakopmund.
The workshop, which is hosted by the Ministry of Justice in partnership with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, aims to assist lawmakers to fight the scourge of human trafficking in the country.
Her call came just days after the Namibia High Court handed down a landmark sentence following the successful prosecution of Swakopmund resident Johanna Lukas on charges of human trafficking.
The PM said the case should indeed serve as an eye-opener to Namibia, put the spotlight on the seriousness of human trafficking and at the same time encourage Namibians to report such crimes.
“The majority of human trafficking victims around the world, translating to 53 percent, are subjected to sexual exploitation. However, other forms of exploitation are increasingly detected. This includes forced labour, forced marriages and child exploitation, which have steadily increased to about 40 percent. However, the observation on the United Nations Day against Trafficking in Persons on 30 July 2014 has provided a much needed opportunity to further raise awareness of the scourge of human trafficking.
“We firmly believe that trafficking in humans undermines our collective effort to end exploitation, oppression, abuse and inequality. Therefore, such crimes must be reported and defeated so that we achieve total emancipation of our women and children.”
According to the PM, the sad truth about the cruel acts of human trafficking is they affect the most vulnerable. However, perpetrators often escape detection and thus do not bear the consequences of their actions, she added.