Malayitshas smuggle in kids

News
Some illegal Zimbabwe immigrants are using long-distance taxi drivers to smuggle their kids in and out of South Africa through the Brigadier border post.

LIMPOPO — Some illegal Zimbabwe immigrants are using long-distance taxi drivers to smuggle their kids in and out of South Africa through the Brigadier border post.

The taxi drivers, popularly known as “cross-border nannies” or malayitshas, charge between R800 and R2 000 to smuggle underage kids, who travel without their parents across the border.

Limpopo police spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said. “We are aware of the practice and our officers at the border post are working to eliminate it.”

An anonymous Zimbabwean source, however, said smuggling children into the country was co-ordinated by taxi drivers with corrupt border police and the problem was far worse than officials acknowledge.

“I do not think South African law officials know the gravity of illegal border crossings,” the Zimbabwean national, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. Another said for most Zimbabweans with no proper paperwork, entering or exiting the country illegally had become the only way they could be with their families.

Allafrica.com recently reported that in Johannesburg, there were several single mothers from Zimbabwe who struggled to care for their young children.

Thembi Nale, a 21-year-old mother who works as a cleaner at a Johannesburg restaurant said the “taxi nannies” took her four-month-old baby to her grandmother in Zimbabwe.

International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Musina also confirmed that smuggling children was common.

“Parents solicit the illegal transporters to fetch their children from Zimbabwe to join them for holidays,” IOM spokesperson, Gaone Dixon said. He said this exposed children to vulnerable situations, particularly little girls who could be raped even by the malaitshas.

Department of Home Affairs spokesperson Mayihlome Tshwethe said his department wanted new regulations to curb human trafficking.

— New Age