"Child Trafficking" Bus Drivers Should Have Been Arrested - Minister Motsoaledi
South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said that bus drivers who allowed hundreds of minors to travel from Zimbabwe to South Africa unaccompanied and without consent forms from guardians should have been arrested.
The Border Management Authority (BMA), a South African law enforcement agency, said that it intercepted 42 buses carrying 443 unaccompanied minors were intercepted at Beitbridge Border Post last weekend.
South African immigration rules stipulate that unaccompanied child travellers (under 18) should have a copy of their birth certificate, parental consent letters, a copy of the passport and a letter from the person who will receive the child in South Africa with contact details.
In an interview with Newzroom Afrika, Motsoaledi said the bus drivers should have been arrested by the BMA. He said:
Our guards are new. I believe they should have arrested those drivers. They said no because the children produced passports and the drivers might have said it was legal.
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I am sure they [authorities] can look for the drivers because they cannot just disappear into Zimbabwe. Many of them are in business and they cannot just stop.
Motsoaledi also defended the BMA for describing the situation as “human trafficking”. He said:
The fact remains that an eight-year-old is found in a plane, bus or car crossing a border with no other documents from parents or authorities except that the child is carrying a passport. It is safer to regard it as trafficking until proven otherwise.
Even if you can prove they are not being trafficked, what has happened is illegal and should not be allowed in any country.
However, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Kazembe Kazembe on Tuesday night told journalists in Harare that claims by South African officials that 42 buses carrying 443 unaccompanied minors were intercepted at Beitbridge Border Post on the SA side were false.
Kazembe said as of Tuesday night, Zimbabwe had not received the children allegedly intercepted by South African authorities.
More: Pindula News
