Australian man charged over rape, human trafficking

A man of Australian origin has been charged before the Chief Magistrates Court in Jinja for alleged rape and human trafficking.

“Our sexual and gender-based violence department at Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headquarters in coordination with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has today (yesterday) arraigned a foreign national at the Chief Magistrates Court, Jinja Court on charges of rape and human trafficking,” Police spokesperson Fred Enanga Enanga told the media during a weekly press briefly in Kampala yesterday.

Police said cases of human trafficking and sexual exploitation are on the rise in the country. The Force, however, didn’t give statistics.

“As you’re all aware, we are registering an increase in human trafficking and cases of sexual exploitation, yet these are very disgraceful and unacceptable crimes in society,” Mr Enanga said.

According to police, the suspect took advantage of his female workers and forced them into have sex with him, failure of which he would threaten to fire them.

“He in addition participated in multiple and group sex with the female victims and also instructed them to perform sexual acts using sex toys as he recorded them on videos,” Mr Enanga said.

“We recovered several videos which were exhibited. We established that the pornographic content in the videos were being generated for commercial purposes,” he added.

Collective effort
Police urged anyone with information about a potential human trafficking offence in their area to contact them so that further inquiries can be carried out.

Late last month, police in Sezibwa region, arrested owners of a massage parlor in Njeru Town on allegations of trafficking people for sexual exploitation.