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Yeukai Karengezeka Court Correspondent

Two men from Karoi and a Chinese national, who had allegedly made arrangements for marrying off three underage girls to China by fraudulently acquiring travelling documents for them, were yesterday charged before the courts.

Chen Dehu (39), Joseph Rabson (44) and Shame Mafido (47) appeared before Harare regional magistrate Mrs Marehwanazvo Gofa charged with human trafficking.

They were remanded in custody pending a ruling on bail.

Chen is a son in law of Rabson and he allegedly came into the country on October 3 for the sole purpose of recruiting victims so that he would traffic them to China for child marriage.

The three connived to recruit the three girls after deceiving them that there was good educational sponsorship and good work conditions yet in fact they wanted to marry them off to Chinese nationals.

Rabson and Mafido are close relatives to the girls.

Prosecuting, Mr Pardon Dziva, alleges that on October 18, the three accused facilitated the transport of the three girls from Karoi to Harare by road and booked a room for them at a lodge where they stayed for four days awaiting for the processing of travel documents.

Since the required age of marriage in China is 20 years, the accused persons fraudulently acquired new birth certificates and national identity document for the two girls who were underage.

The trio facilitated the acquiring of a new Zimbabwean passport of the third victim by paying the amount required to achieve total control.

Detectives from CID Counter Terrorism Unit arrested the three accused at the lodge in Belvedere, Harare, after receiving a tip-off to the effect that underage girls were being harboured.

The investigating officer, Constable Detective Stephen Gandidzanwa yesterday strongly opposed bail on the grounds that there was a high likelihood of them influencing the girls not to come to court since they are related.

He said there was strong evidence that the three wanted to marry off the children and produced the necessary certificates from the Registrar General’s office showing the three girls were not already married.