As the habit of human
trafficking and illegal immigration is becoming rampant in the country, the
government has been asked to review some of the penal codes so as to impose
harsh punishments with a view to deter people who facilitate such cross border
illegal business deals. Speaking exclusively this week in Dar es Salaam, the
Deputy Commissioner of Immigration Services, Abbas Irovya said that, dealers of
illegal human trafficking and illegal immigrants finds easy access in the
country due to less severe punishments imposed to them once caught with the
offense. Despite having a series of changes on laws of Anti-human trafficking
Act 2008 and that of Immigration Act N0. 7 Cap 54 of 1995 which was revised in
2002, human trafficking and illegal immigration is still a great challenge in
the country, he affirmed. Irovya who a lawyer by profession noted that, the
country’s laws are outdated and needs to be reviewed to match with current
situation in order to curb the menace which seems to be growing at a high
speed. He said under the current laws “facilitators are normally fined or sent to
jail for failure of paying fines once found guilty an aspect that most of them resort
to pay fines and walk free or deported, the penalty that is not enough to
enable eradicate the increased phenomenon in the country”. He outlined some of the
sections that are ignored and not adhered to as 31(1) L, 31 (1) P and 31(1) Q of
the Immigration Act that prohibits harboring illegal immigrants. The latter
section prohibits an employer from employing a foreigner without work permit. When
asked why Tanzania has become so prone to human trafficking he noted that it is
because of its strategic geographical position that people from Ethiopia who are
mostly notorious of such malpractices finds easy access through on their way to
South Africa. He noted that, Ethiopians collude with few untrustworthy Tanzania
nationals who help facilitate their movements a factor that is illegal to the
existing laws of the country.
Deputy Commissioner of Immigration Services, Abbas Irovya
The business which he says is becoming so
lucrative is a syndicate that is well planned and organized by unknown people and
penetrated through due to easy global communication link that helps information
access through by use of mobile phones. He has however, suggested that, the
government should impose punitive measures that would include not only long
jail term in prisons, but also even the confiscation of the properties including
houses on which such illegal immigrants are being accommodated while on transit.
He further noted that, to a certain extent the immigration dept in the country
has managed to control such movements across the border following the
installation of a special electronic device called ‘immigration control
equipment’ that has helped a lot to capture people’s information especially
those they suspect. He said the equipment has other roles to play of detecting
people who involves in cross border crimes such as the illegal drug
trafficking. However, he has called on people in the country from district
level to regional to help the government reveal people who engage in such types
of crimes at this time when the nation prepares for October general election. In
2013, about 30,000 foreigners were arrested in te country alongside national
aimed to seek for illegal immigrants in the country dubbed ‘Operation Kimbunga’
and charged with different counts for illegal stay in the country. The latest
statistics by Immigration department shows that, in 2014 along about 7,468
foreigners from 47 countries in the world were arrested in connected with
illegal stay in the country and among them 1910 came from Ethiopia, out of
these 2,200 were taken to court and convicted of various offenses according to
law. Among them 243 were convicted and fined and 367 jailed, while 560 of them
were set free and over 600 have still their cases in court up to now. While
among the list earlier arrested 2,600 were deported. From African countries,
Ethiopians poses a great threat to illegal immigrants, and other countries are
Burundi, Rwanda, DRC, Kenya and Uganda. Other countries are India, USA and
German. World widely, there are 20.9 million victims of human trafficking and
it is the world’s second largest criminal enterprise followed by illegal drug trafficking.
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