'200 Zimbabwean women on death row in China caused by Nigerian men' - Member of Parliament

The Chairperson of the Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development Parliamentary Portfolio Committee in Zimbabwe, Beatrice Nyamupinga, has accused the plight of more than 200 of their women who are on death row for drug trafficking in China and other Asian countries on Nigerian men who trick and use them as mules to carry the deadly cargoes for them.


The Chronicle, one of the country's biggest newspaper, report that Nyamupinga, a ZANU-PF MP for Goromonzi, moved a motion on human trafficking in the National Assembly, where she made the revelations, adding that findings have shown that most of the women on death row were duped by their Nigerian boyfriends that they were going for shopping in preparation for their weddings, while dangerous drugs would be placed in their luggage without their knowledge.

She said the Nigerians would have paid lobola (a sort of bride price in property in cash or kind, which a prospective husband or head of his family undertakes to give to the head of a prospective wife’s family in consideration of a customary marriage), for the women who the West Africans then use as drug mules.


We’ve about 200 Zimbabweans and the majority of the 200 are women, who are on the death row in China because they’ve been used by the so-called Nigerians who are coming here, marrying them through an Act that we enacted in this House.
They marry them and then ask them to go to China to buy their wedding gowns. As they go to China to buy their wedding gowns, they’re given a bag, which has a false bottom and in that false bottom, drugs are secretly packed.
They’re told; ‘when you get to China, my friend is going to receive you and will show you the shops where you can buy your gown.’ She gets to China and the immigration and customs of China know that and these girls are intercepted and convicted.

It’s with a heavy heart that I rise to move a motion on human trafficking following the repatriation of around 53 out of 1,000 women believed to have been trafficked to Kuwait.
Not only Kuwait but to other countries like China, other Arab countries and including South Africa of all countries.

On this one, let me also add that these girls or the women who are being trafficked, we’ve almost 2,000 or over 1,000 that are roaming around China as we speak right now. They were trafficked to China and some of them are now desperate and stranded in China.

The government departments should swiftly address the issue of foreigners marrying locals as they are the ones contributing to the challenges of human trafficking.
Once that’s done, the Nigerian will go and marry the next one. I don’t know the game of changing names and whatever happens. I think also the Minister of Home Affairs, through the Registrar General, should also look at this.

So, these women now, you know in China, they’ll tell you that once you bring drugs, it’s death penalty; almost 200 are on death row and of the 200, the majority are women.”
This is not the first other countries will blame Nigerians for their woes. Early this year, a controversial Kenyan blogger, Cyprian Nyakundi, set the tone for an online war between his country and Nigeria, after he took to his blog to say that Nigerian men use their women as drug mules.