GASABO - A court in Gasabo District has convicted and sentenced a 44-year-old man to 30 years in prison for promoting underage prostitution. Mustafa Munyawera was accused by parents of luring their young girls from various secondary schools into prostitution. Excitement gripped the courtroom after the judgment was pronounced. "I am happy because justice has prevailed. This man is a monster,” Jolly Mutamba, a parent of one of the girls said. She suspects Munyawera could have been in league with others still at large.

Police working on a tip off from parents arrested Munyawera last year. He was picked together with a 17-year-old girl who was working as his go-between.

Munyawera’s accomplice was handed a suspended five-year term because by the time she committed the crime she was still a minor.

According to prosecution, Munyawera used money to lure the girls in a house he rented. At night fall, he would take them to night clubs and then convince them to sleep with several men.

The court said it had adduced enough evidence against Munyawera and was subsequently sentenced on March 30. The girls had earlier told the court that Munyawera had slept with most of them several times.

They stated that Munyawera had also promised to secretly move them outside the country where men were willing to pay them a lot of money.

Last year, Mutamba got information from school authorities that her daughter had gone missing for days which prompted an immediate search. After weeks, her daughter’s classmate tipped her that the girl was with somebody called Mustafa.

"At first I thought it was a simple elopement, but when I set eyes on this man fit to be the girl’s father, I was shocked,” Mutamba narrated. She immediately rushed to police who swung into action and arrested Munyawera.

They also arrested the girls from a rented house which belongs to an Asian in Kicukiro. The girls told prosecution that their classmate, Sheila La douce from Groupe Scolaire APRED Ndera acted as a go-between.

"Some girls used to seek permission every week to visit this man. They would tell lies to school authorities that they were going home and then end up going to him,” another parent who spoke on condition of anonymity said.

Court heard that Munyawera paid the girls between Frw2000 and Frw10000. Medical reports indicate that one of the girls is now pregnant. When the judgment was read out, Munyawera held his head in disbelief.

He told the court that though they used to sleep at his house, he had no idea they were under age. He denied ever defiling them, saying they were of a consenting age.

But the girls’ birth certificates indicate they were below eighteen years by the time the crime was committed. He alleged that he accommodated the girls because they claimed they were homeless and orphans.

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