{Students should be vigilant because they are majority targets into human trafficking under the disguise of getting them white-collar offers in other countries where they end up becoming sexual and exploitive slavery.}
The messages were delivered by various speakers on February 20, while speaking to students of St. Andre secondary school in Nyamirambo, Nyarugenge District.
This was shortly after an anti-crime friendly football match between St. Andre and Rwanda National Police, which the latter won 1-0.
Inspector of Police (IP) Claude Budaraza, the Nyarugenge District Community Liaison Officer (DCLO) explained to the students the tricks traffickers use to lure them into this modern-day slavery and adverse ordeals involved.
He explained that although victims are sometimes taken by use of force, threat or abduction, which methods are yet to be reported in Rwanda, majority are deceived or manipulated due to their vulnerability.
IP Badaraza further noted that human trafficking is no longer “hearsay in Rwanda” adding that “even Rwandans have fallen victims” in the past years.
Rwanda National Police has since 2009 handled 36 cases of human trafficking involving over 150 victims, most majority foreigners intercepted in Rwanda while in transit.
About 90 per cent of the victims are females and 82 per cent of them aged between 18 and 35 years.
In 2009, RNP intercepted 51 Bangladeshis in Kigali while in transit to Mozambique. Between 2012 and 2013, ten Rwandan girls were rescued from Uganda and some suspect arrested.
In September last year, Interpol Kigali intercepted a Ugandan girl at Kigali International Airport as she was being trafficked to Dubai.
Early last month, two Rwandan nationals were arrested in a hotel in Nyabugogo with three females they were allegedly trafficking to Nairobi, Kenya
Most victims are said to be bound to Asian countries like Malaysia and China, Arab World, Southern Africa and in the East Africa.
“Some traffickers try to be good or befriend you and try by all means to manipulate you not to reveal any information to anyone on any given deal. Always inform people or Police on such offers such that this act is prevented and those involved arrested,” IP Budaraza told the students.
IP Viviane Umulisa, from the RNP Directorate of Anti-Gender Based Violence and Child Protection also reminded the students to fight and report incidences of gender related abuses and partner with police in fighting any criminal or illegal acts.
The students were also sensitized on dangers associated with drug abuse and urged to desist from such acts and concentrate on their studies.
Drug abuse and GBV, although they have decreased tremendously in the last few years, largely due to increase awareness, remain among the major crimes committed in Rwanda.
{{Drug abuse is rated high among the youth.}}
Father Lambert Dusingizimana, the headmaster of St. Andre secondary school thanked RNP for the educative lecture and appealed to his students to be crime preventers and live by example.
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