Father arrested for attempted sale of daughter in Tete – WATCH

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Father arrested for attempted sale of daughter in Tete – WATCH

12:40 CAT | 13 Oct 2017

TVM

A man by the name of Estefânio Máquina accused of attempting to sell his 13-years-old daughter has been in custody in Tete since Monday in what police believe is a case of attempted human trafficking.

The accused is alleged to have contacted José Carlos, the president of the Mozambican Herbalists Association, to help him find a buyer for his daughter at a price of just over 2,360,000 meticals to unidentified individuals.

When Máquina contacted Carlos, he had two of his five children with him.

To convince them to leave the house for the place where the girl was to be sold, the father told the children they were going to meet their mother, who was returning from Chiúta.

Lurdes Ferreira, a police spokesman in Tete, said there were strong indications that Máquina was attempting to sell his own daughter, who attends primary school in that part of the country.

A knife hidden in a sack was found among his possession, giving rise to suspicions that he was going to kill his daughter. He is being charged with trafficking in human beings.

In order to achieve his goals, the accused sent his wife to her home district of Chiúta, keeping with him the girl and a nine-year-old son. Máquina intended to buy land and build a house and buy appliances with the money, José Carlos said.

Carlos told the police that Estefânio, currently detained in the PRM third squadron in Tete, said he wanted to sell his daughter to get out of poverty, so he needed a buyer.

“I found this kind of business of selling a human being very strange,” Carlos said. “So I asked him to wait in a place where we could do the business and he agreed, but I went to the police instead.”