The girls aged between 18 and 24 years old were now languishing in the streets of New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Goa.
According to the Head of Communications
in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, East African and Regional
Cooperation, Ms Mindi Kasiga, expounding on the ordeal, said 350 of the
girls were in New Delhi, 45 were in Bangalore, 20 were in Mumbai and the
rest were in Goa.
Ms Kasiga told a press conference in Dar
es Salaam that in their fight for a come back home, the girls who are
victims of human trafficking have already submitted their request for
support to the Tanzania High Commission in India.
She confirmed that the government was
aware of the girls’ problem and had started contemplating to bring them
back home. “The Tanzanians were taken by employment agencies with
promises to help them acquire jobs in hotels, malls and domestic work.
But they were forced into sex work after
getting to India. “The Tanzanians are victims of human trafficking
carried out by a syndicate which involves Tanzanians and foreigners. The
employment agencies hold their passports until the victims repay them
the costs incurred to transport them,” she said.
Ms Kasiga pointed out the challenges
facing the Tanzanians who are being taken to work in Middle East and
Asia to include working without contracts with meagre salaries or
overworked.
“So far, a total of 10 out of 18
Tanzanians, who had requested for support to the government, have been
repatriated from Oman,” she said. Ms Kasiga said the government has
worked on some of the challenges likely to face Tanzanians abroad,
saying the government has introduced contracts in accordance to the laws
and regulations in the respective countries.
“The Tanzania High Commission to Oman,
for instance, has helped a total of 4,358 Tanzanians to acquire jobs
with proper contracts since 2011,” she said.
Last year, the government banned up to
70 employment agencies that send women to countries in the Middle East
to be housemaids. It comes after complaints that women who travel from
Tanzania to the Middle East for work are being mistreated
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