The Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC) has written to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Homeland Security, Inspector General of Police, and Speaker of National Assembly, asking for the repatriation of at least 11 young women arrested abroad on drug and human trafficking charges.

HRCC chairperson Robert Mkwezalamba, outlined that the women, who are in Asian countries while others are in Ghana and South Africa, are in a situation that raises the concern on the government’s failure to own its citizens. The HRCC chairperson also pointed out that other governments of Kenya, Ghana and South Africa have in the past successfully negotiated the release of their citizens faced with similar predicament from other nations.

In an interview with The Nation newspaper, the former chairperson of Parliamentary committee on International relations Alex Major explained that by 2018, over 200 Malawians were locked up in foreign prisons for drug trafficking.