Zimbabwe: President Robert Mugabe government has warned his nationals to be “extremely circumspect” before accepting job offers abroad after reports that up to 200 women have been trafficked to Kuwait and forced into domestic slavery.
“Anything which seems to be too good to be true cannot be true,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Sunday.
Zimbabwe’s foreign affairs ministry says it was able to repatriate 15 Zimbabwean women who were trafficked to Kuwait.
Local reports indicate dozens of others may still be trapped in the oil-rich gulf state, after they were allegedly lured there by the promise of good jobs.
This comes after reports that at least 150 Zimbabwean women were lured to Kuwait by the promise of well-paid jobs as waitresses or maids.
Zimbabwean state media says that instead the women were trafficked into domestic slavery.
Already eight people, including a Kuwaiti embassy official, have appeared in court in Harare on charges of human trafficking.
They were alleged to have promised young women paid jobs as waitress or housemaids in Kuwait.
When the women, up to 200 of them in recent months, arrived in Kuwait – they discovered that they were “virtually household slaves”.
The Zimbabwean Sunday Mail last week spoke to one of the victims via Whatsapp instant messaging platform, and the woman narrated how an agent was demanding $3000 US dollars from her family before she could be allowed to return home.
“We are not being given food here and we are harassed and beaten all the time,” the woman told the paper.
