Mozambique busts suspected child smuggling ring

MAPUTO (Reuters) - Mozambican police have detained a suspected human trafficker after discovering 40 children packed into trucks in inhumane conditions along the African country's main highway, an official said on Wednesday.

The children were loaded on trucks in northern Mozambique and were en route to the southern part of the country, where there is a growing child labor and prostitution problem, said Feliciano Dique, a spokesman for the Sofala provincial police.

The driver of one of the trucks told police they were transporting the kids to schools in the capital Maputo and elsewhere in the nation.

"We don't believe this theory because the children are hungry and weak, while they don't have any proper documentation. The driver does not even know their names, therefore, he has been detained for questioning," Dique said.

Mozambique is expected this year to enact a law that would increase prison sentences for human smugglers and others engaging in the practice. Those caught trafficking people currently face jail terms ranging from two to eight years.

But authorities have not yet prosecuted any human smugglers. Efforts to do so have been handicapped by the former Portuguese colony's general tolerance of child labor, which is common in its rural areas, as well as its weak border controls.

Smugglers have seized on the country's complacent attitude, arranging for young men and boys to be sent to work on farms and mines, and young girls to be sold into domestic servitude and to brothels in neighboring southern African nations.

The smuggling networks are usually small operations run by Mozambicans and South Africans. South Africa is one of the major destinations for those who fall prey to the human traffickers.

An estimated 1,000 Mozambican women and children are trafficked to South Africa each year, according to the International Organisation on Migration (IOM).

(Editing by Paul Simao and Giles Elgood)