This is the kernel of a Wednesday, April 14, 2021, ruling by Magistrate Florence Nzene of the Limbe Magistrate’s Court. The court had ended a preliminary hearing into the case on March 19, 2021.

 “The seven accused persons have been committed to stand trial at the High Court in Buea,” the Magistrate told The Post on Wednesday after having delivered her ruling earlier on.

“It was on Wednesday, February 24th, and Thursday, February 25th, when elements of the Limbe Gendarmerie Brigade, following a tip-off descended on Shallote Mokube and Vivian Mbotake at the Dockyard area at Down Beach in Limbe and arrested them accompanied by Blessing Adewallo, (a Nigerian National), Ewuha Emelienne, Vivian Njanu, Wojoko Hannah Longonje, and one Stella Amudjua,” The Post reported.

The seven were accused of having allegedly, between December 2020, and February 2021, trafficked in some 26 children, aged between seven and 14 from the far-flung villages of Pondo Balue and Bafaka Balue in Ndian Division, to Limbe.

The report read: “Mokube and Mbotake are said to have been the main accused persons in the preliminary trial who were alleged to have collected some money from the five other accused, went over to these war-torn villages in Ndian, got these children without their due consent and ferried them to Limbe where they ended up in the custody of the five other persons.

“Count-one of the three charges that the Limbe Legal Department, which committed the seven for a preliminary trial by the Limbe Court, held that Mokube, as first accused, and Mbotake, as the second accused, were liable for "trafficking" by having moved “26 children from their parental home in Pondo Balue in Ndian Division intending to directly reap a financial benefit therefrom.”

“This court further held that the first two accused women committed a crime liable and punishable under section 5(a) of the 2005 law relating to the trafficking and enslavement of children.

“Count two and three of the charges were leveled against the five other accused persons who are said to have provided the financing for the two women to go to Ndian and ferry the children to Limbe.

“Thus, count two held that these five other accused, “practice child trafficking by financing the trip of the 26 children from their parental homes in Ndian to Limbe to engage them into child labor and slavery”.

“Count-three concluded that the five accomplices “compelled these 26 children to work and offer services to them” against their own free will which it held was a crime punishable under section 292 of the Cameroon Penal Code.

“After having listened to the stories of the children, statements from the gendarmes, the Delegate for Social Affairs from the Southwest, the accused women and their accomplices, some elite from Pondo, among others, the Limbe Magistrate Court ruled on Wednesday, April 14, that the accused had a case to answer before the High Court in Buea.”

26 Children Placed In Orphanages

Meantime, Magistrate Nzene told The Post that the Minister of Social Affairs decided that the 26 children who have been out of school for the past four years, not be sent back to Ndian where they might still end up in the same situation that they have been in, for the past years.

She said the Minister decided that all the 26 be placed in orphanages across Fako so that when it shall be time for school, they shall be sent to school and be in a place where they can be monitored and taken care of.