Researchers from the Public Ministry and civil society consider that the absence of a National Action Plan to combat human trafficking reflects the lack of political will to deal with this type of crime in Mozambique and justifies all the inefficiency that is registered in this area.

The researcher Inácio Mussanhane, tells VOA that "it doesn't make sense that until today Mozambique doesn't have a national strategy to combat trafficking in people, which is taking on very worrying contours in the country," adding that maybe it will be too late when the authorities wake up to this cruel reality.

Mussanhane investigated and denounced the media case of a young Mozambican girl who was trafficked to neighboring South Africa, and says that only the lack of political will can justify that until today Mozambique has no national strategy to combat human trafficking.

The investigator for the Public Ministry, Momed Nazir, says it is "regrettable that the country does not have a National Action Plan to Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Nazir questions why Mozambique does not sign the Budapest Convention on Action against Human Trafficking, stressing that these two instruments "are very important in the fight against this type of crime.

For Luciano da Costa, a civil society researcher, without a plan "let's say a guiding plan, we will not achieve any success in combating trafficking in people; we are ineffective in this area, fundamentally for lack of this instrument.

It should be noted that both Mussanhane and Nazir, consider that poverty is no longer the main cause of human trafficking in Mozambique, pointing out that social networks and, to some extent, well-paid jobs, contribute significantly to the increase in cases of human trafficking in the country.

Luciano da Costa, who recently did a study on human trafficking in Mozambique, says that regarding young people, promises of jobs make them "easily fall into the trafficking networks.

For his part, Henriques Manuel, a member of the National Reference Group for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings in Mozambique, considers the situation in the country quite worrying.

Manuel says that "since Covid-19 broke out, we have had 20 cases of human trafficking in Mozambique, involving a total of 82 victims."

A source from the Attorney General's Office said that a national plan to combat trafficking in human beings is already being prepared, and involves several actions, including legislative reform, regulation, policies, support, protection, and assistance to victims.