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"id": 101453,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/101453/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Wetangula",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for Foreign Affairs",
"speaker": {
"id": 210,
"legal_name": "Moses Masika Wetangula",
"slug": "moses-wetangula"
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"content": "Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, on the issue of penalties, I agree with you fully. People who traffic in human beings, whether for labour, sex or for whatever reason, are not any different from Tippu Tip, the Arab and European slave traders of the previous centuries. The only difference is that they come in suits carrying briefcases full of money. When we catch up with them, a very harsh penalty is desirable. In fact, if you go to comparable jurisdictions, like the Philippines, human traffickers are sentenced to death and hanged. If you go to Malaysia, human traffickers are sentenced to death and hanged. The same applies to Singapore. Of course, the pro-life people in this country are very conscious about the application of the death penalty but I also want to advice you that if you go the USA, you will find that more than 16 States have reinstated the death penalty in the last ten years. In fact, for the first time in 20 years, there was an execution of a death sentence by a firing squad because it is supposed to be a deterrent measure. I believe that anybody who can go to a village in this country with sweets and money and pick helpless children who cannot even think for themselves and traffic them for sex and labour, that person does not deserve to live. I think that we need a very severe deterrent measure to curb such activities in this country. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, once this Bill is passed, then the implementation must come into force immediately. If you go to our coast, you will see the sorry state in which little children are lured into sex. In fact, I have been told, and I believe it is true, that in some European capitals, there are advertisements in the newspapers there that if you want sex with an 8 or 10 year old child, go to Kenya. This is an affront to the dignity of this country. It is an affront to the dignity of the people of this country and we need a law that will not only deal with the end users and petty offenders who pick children and take them to the beaches, but those tycoons who come to the beaches with their money to defile and desecrate our children. They must also be severely punished. So the mover should find a way of getting such fellows also to meet the full weight of the law. That is the only way we can clean up our country and protect our children. Finally, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to urge the House to support this very important Bill. I think it is a milestone in our legislative history that for once, we are dealing with something that we have lived with for a very long time. Many of our girls have been lured to go to low level colleges in Europe but when they end up there; they never go to any college. Instead, they end up in prostitution dens and all other houses of sin that we all know. With those many remarks, Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I beg to support the Bill."
}