A combined team of Zambia Police, Immigration, Social Welfare, the Court, and the office of the District Commissioner has successfully carried out a deportation order on a child prohibited immigrant from Malawi.

ZANIS reports that the team which is referred to as the Best Interest Determination (BID) panel, deported 13-year-old Elizabeth Ngozo, a fifth grader at Kasongo Primary School in Malawi.

The Malawian Child Offender was from Chibesa Village of Chief Chiwela in Kasungu District of that country.

According to the report filed by the Lundazi Child Welfare Inspector, Mark Mwanza, the child was found wanting for unlawful entry into Zambia, contrary to Section 11 (1) (2) and section 56 (1) of the Immigration and Deportation Act Number 18 of 2010 of the Laws of Zambia.

Mr Mwanza revealed that the child came to Zambia with her elder sister with the promise to be hired as a house maid in Lumezi District of the Eastern Province.

To the child’s disappointment, the only available job offer for the duo was to work as farm laborers in Chanyalubwe area within Lumezi District.

According to the information obtained from the Child Offender, she was not willing to work on a farm as she was too young for the kind of the job and decided to trek back to Malawi without her elder sister.

The child who was born in the family of five, told the Social Welfare Office that she was under the care of her widowed mother in Malawi.

The minor was found walking on foot by Patson Mwale from Nkhazimwene in the late hours of Sunday and offered her shelter for the night, before alerting the Social Welfare Office on Monday, October 21, 2024, for possible repatriation.

And the child has been successfully handed over to the Social Welfare Office at Kasungu District in Malawi.

(Research Gate).