By: Kelvin Chiringa
Technical issues have delayed two cases of child trafficking and rape which are currently floating in the High Court before Justice Christie Liebenberg.
This comes right in the wake of government pushing for a tightening of bolts on human trafficking and stiffer penalties to root out the problem.
A Russian marine pilot Alexander Krylov and a Namibian woman, Katrina Engelbrecht, are both accused of the offenses but their trial is yet to begin due to delays in securing a state sponsored lawyer.
Although Limba Mhata will now be representing Engelbrecht, he only received his instructions this week while council for Krylov has not yet expressed if there are certain issues in the initial documents he will dispute.
Allegations are that Engelbrecht recruited minor children for sexual exploitation for the Russian.
Krylov who is in his late 50s will, faces the court on allegations of engaging in immoral acts with minors under the age of 16, and is in the meantime out on bail together with his co-accused.
He has sought the services of prominent lawyer Sisa Namandje.
Their case has thus been pushed to the 18th of April.
The other case involved Andre Majiedt who is yet to sign his reply to the state’s pre-trial memorandum.
All this comes as Namibia got recently placed on an international list of countries failing to combat human trafficking.
In 2017 alone, 21 cases of trafficking were recorded, beating the 2016 numbers.
In his latest report, Michael Conteh says trafficking in human beings and, more especially, trafficking in children have been high on the international agenda for more than a decade.
“Only recently, however, has the international community more fully appreciated that, in addition to being a serious violation of children’s rights and a criminal act, the trafficking of children is unquestionably a serious labour issue. It has now become a non-stop global fight to eliminate the practice,” he says.
