A 31-year-old Marondera woman appeared in court on allegations of recruiting people and trafficking them to prospective buyers in Oman to work as domestic workers.
Karen Pamela Teguru was facing charges of violating the Trafficking of People’s Act when she appeared before Harare Magistrate Mrs Marehwanazvo Gofa.
She was remanded in custody pending trial.
Allegations are that during the period extending from January 2022 to August 2022, Teguru, working in connivance with one Hamidah believed to be in Oman and others who are still at large, hatched a plan to traffic Portia Kalesi and Namatirai Muchacha for the purpose of labour and domestic exploitation.
lt is alleged that to achieve their goals, they assigned each other some roles in which Teguru identified, recruited, processed travelling documents, medical examinations for the complainants and escorted them to Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport destined for Oman instead of Dubai as promised.
The State further alleges that the accused escorted the complainants to make sure that they had flown out of the country into the hands of her accomplices.
The court heard that the complainants allegedly realised that they had been duped upon arrival at Muscat International Airport, Oman instead of Dubai as promised.
Teguru’s accomplices provided money for medical examinations, air tickets, processing of visas and sourcing of markets on which the complainants would be sold well before they had reached Oman.
lt is the State’s case that upon arrival in Oman, the complainants were received by the accused’s accomplice Hamidah who would sell the complainants to prospective buyers who in turn confiscated their travelling documents and drove them to different locations were they would be forced to work as domestic workers.
The complainants were subjected to domestic servitude, working around the clock, feeding on left overs, physically abused and denied freedom of movement by being restricted in doors.
The matter came to light when the complainants reported the matter to their relatives back home who in turn reported that matter to police.
The complainants fled from their abusers and sought assistance from a Zimbabwean delegation which was dispatched to Oman to repatriate them. The Herald