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Prosper Dembedza

Court Correspondent

Harare Magistrate, Mrs Yeukai Dzuda, last Friday denied bail to a 29-year-old woman who is facing allegations of recruiting unsuspecting housemaids and taking them to Oman where they were subjected to torture and slavery.

In denying Tendai Muswe bail, Mrs Dzuda said the State managed to prove that the accused person was a flight risk.

Muswe is facing human trafficking charges.

In opposing bail, the State said Muswe was still in contact with her accomplices who are still at large and granting her bail would jeopardise investigations.

The court heard that sometime between October 2021 and January 2022, the accused person recruited several Zimbabwean women to go and work in Oman as house maids.

According to the court papers Muswe misrepresented through the recruitment process that all the victims they recruited would receive lucrative salaries while in Oman. The accused also secured all the required travelling documents for the victims.

The court heard Muswe’s accomplices in Oman sent air tickets and Visas to both accused and the victims through whatsapp. It is alleged that the victims departed on different dates to Oman, where upon their arrival they were sold for labour exploitation and servitudes to their employers.

The court heard that whilst in Oman the complainants were subjected to verbal abuse , labour exploitation through working for long hours a day without being paid. They had to work without time off and they were not allowed to communicate with the outside world as their cellphones and Passports were confiscated by their agents and the Oman Immigration Officials.

The State prosecution notified the court that only one victim has managed to come back to Zimbabwe.