NYAGATARE- Police in Nyagatare District are holding a 25-year-old woman and a motor-cycle taxi operator in connection with human trafficking.

Charlotte Musanabera and Benon Rwabyoma were arrested on Monday while trying to illegally cross the border into Uganda to lure a 20-year-old girl into prostitution.

Police said that Musanabera, a resident of Kanombe in Kicukiro District in Kigali city, allegedly convinced a 20-year-old girl (name withheld) who is her neighbour that she would get her a job at one of the hotels in Nyagatare.

"She told her that she was taking her to one of the hotels in Nyagatare to work but instead diverted her,” a police official at Nyagatare police post told The Sunday Times on Friday.

When they reached Nyagatare town, Musanabera hired Benon Rwabyoma, a motor cycle taxi operator in the town who smuggled the young girl to Ntungamo District in neighbouring Uganda.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Musanabera said that she was taking the girl to a Rwandan man whom she identified as Nelson who would later take both of them to Gikagati in Ntungamo to work in a hotel.

"I took the girl from her home in Kanombe because someone had given me Nelson’s number saying that he was going to give us a job at a hotel near the Rwanda-Uganda border. Because I deceived the girl that we were going very near in Nyagatare town I did not want to tell her exactly where we were going,” she said.

Sandrine Mwamikazi, Musanabera’s neighbour, said that residents in the area, especially the suspect’s neighbours, have been accusing Musanabera of trafficking young girls.

"Residents have been accusing this woman of human trafficking and luring young girls into prostitution. She is accused of having kidnapped two other girls who are now nowhere to be seen.,” Mwamikaz said.

Musanabera’s alleged accomplice, Rwabyoma, confessed to crossing the border but said that he has no connection with human trafficking.

"I admit having violated the law by crossing the border illegally, but I had no connection with selling young girls to Uganda..I just received a phone call from Nelson asking me to take his visitors to Kazaza centre near Gikagati. As a motor cyclist looking for money, I took them,” he said.

Police spokesperson, Supt. Theos Badege, said that human trafficking is a serious crime punished by the law.

"These are some of the few serious crimes we experience…they are cross-border crimes and we give them much importance in collaboration with immigration departments.

It is a crime that is even given much attention in the regional cooperation,” he said.

The Police spokesman strongly warned parents who abandon their children to go and work in unknown places.

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