{Students in Musanze District have been called upon to raise the awareness and fight against the emerging modern-day slavery of human trafficking.}
The call was made on March 8 during the awareness against trafficking in human beings held in Kabera and Cyuve secondary schools.
The District Community Liaison Officer (DCLO) of Musanze, Inspector of Police (IP) Viateur Ntiyamira enlightened them on the tricks human traffickers employ to manipulate unsuspecting victims especially girls, the most targeted.
“Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery, and involves the use of force, deceit and fraud or coercion to exploit human beings and for the case of Rwanda, although there are very few cases, those who have fallen victims are exploited through deceit,” IP Ntiyamira said.
“Although figures indicate that this crime is rare in our country we cannot afford to turn a blind eye. The goal of Rwanda National Police, which should be the goal of every Rwandan, is to stand up against such crimes that undermine human rights. Don’t be deceived by such strange people who come to you with promises, instead report them,” he added.
“Together in awareness and timely information sharing, we will be on the preventive side. We don’t want to deal with consequences of human trafficking; we want to make Rwanda an impossible place to conduct such an illegal and dehumanizing trade,” the DCLO told students.
Besides human trafficking, IP Ntiyamira seized the opportunity to rally students against other crimes like drug abuse saying that; “most criminal act under the influence of drugs that’s why if we are to address other crimes like domestic and gender based violence, and theft, we need to get to the root causes.”
In both schools, the administration and students pledged to continue raising the awareness against human trafficking and drug abuse through internally organized debates, discussions and forming of anti-crime clubs.
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