Sheku Bangura founder and executive Director of Advocacy Network Against Irregular Migration has been consistent in his call to Members of Parliament (MPs) to speed up the enactment of the new anti-human trafficking act.
We once again draw the attention of the general public that the anti-human trafficking act 2005 does not have any provision for smuggling. There is also no existing law that prohibits smuggling in Sierra Leone, hence people commit the crime and get away with it.
We have been strongly appealing, and we are still appealing to parliament to approve human smuggling into the anti-human trafficking act of 2005. Most of the human trafficking cases brought to court actually have to do with smuggling and not human trafficking, but there is no law on smuggling in the anti-human trafficking act of 2005 therefore we lost most of such cases in court.
We also want to highlight the importance of incorporating the smuggling act into the 2005 anti-trafficking act. It will be easy to pursue smuggling cases and convict offenders when the act is enacted. If the anti-smuggling becomes law, offenders will easily be trapped and punished by the law.
The act will also serve as a deterrent to those who have been committing the crime and those who may want to commit it will scare away from doing so.
A lot of people lost their lives, while some undergo unbearable suffering as a result of traffickers taking them to the Middle East, North Africa, and other parts of the world.
As the Executive Director of the Advocacy Network against Irregular Migration, I have also borne the brunt of irregular migration when sometimes in 2017 I was deceived by smugglers and taken to Libya where I underwent mere slavery.
Enacting smuggling into the anti-human trafficking act will help curtail irregular migration in Sierra Leone. Irregular migration became a phenomenon in the past decade because there is no law in the country that prohibits such crime. If both the anti-human trafficking act and the smuggling act became law, offenders can hardly escape both laws.
The enactment of the act will also lead to higher levels of successful prosecution and conviction of human trafficking crimes. Despite challenges of funding, to support nationwide sensitization of the act, parliament should go all out to make sure that the bill is enacted so as to curtail the menace.
We encourage other countries across West Africa to also enact stronger laws to control the situation.
Urging Members of Parliament to expedite Anti-Human Trafficking Act 2022
