This page describes exploitation and abuse. Need to report something? How to report →
Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). We don’t have a verifiable source on file yet. Know one?
What happened
The suspects are believed to be part of an organised smuggling ring that has been trafficking illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Pakistan into Botswana. It is understood that the human trafficking operation in Botswana has contracts with small criminal rings and large scale organized criminals in Bangladesh and Pakistan who act as immigrant smuggling brokers to solicit individuals wanting to be smuggled out of their countries. “At the moment we are still trying to establish how they get into the country, where they come from and who helps them,” said Mathews Maduwane(Assistant Commissioner of Police and Deputy Director Criminal Investigations Department), adding that there were indications that some police officers, local labour consultants and Asian investors were part of the human smuggling web, but they had not been charged yet.
Response and intervention
Law enforcement was somewhat involved. The problem is that there is/was an absence of anti-human trafficking legislation; Botswana has become an emerging destination and major staging area for the movement of illegal aliens to South Africa. The Botswana police first detected human trafficking from Pakistan and Bangladesh into Botswana two years ago. Around the same time, they also smashed a ring of Somali human trafficking brokers who were facilitating the smuggling of illegal immigrants from East Africa into Botswana and South Africa.