The National Initiative for Civic Education (NICE) Public Trust and Biwi Police Unit have joined hands in raising awareness on crime prevention at Biwi Industrial Site in Lilongwe.

Among others, the two institutions have been conducting whistle-stop security awareness raising tours to equip the residents with information that can help them fight and/or prevent crime.

In an interview away from the tour, NICE volunteer Aaron Mzumara said citizens have a greater role to play in ensuring that both households and workplace are secure at all times.

Mzumara also emphasized the need for the players in the industrial sector to stop exploitation of girls and women who sell them various foodstuffs, including bananas and other fruits.

“We have observed that some businesspersons take advantage of the economic challenges women and girls are going through to sexually exploit them. These abuses negatively affect the social, mental and psychological health of their girls and women,” he said.

Biwi Police Unit representative Sergeant Blessings Mantchombe warned business owners against buying goods from suspicious individuals, offering goods at a give-away prices without authentic documents.

Mantchombe said this practice promotes crime. He also warned the community against indulging themselves in mob justice, saying this derails police investigations and hinder legal justice.

“You must also desist from excessive beer drinking because this, too, fuels violence,” he said.

In her remarks, an official from the Ministry of Labour and Manpower Development, Suzgika Msowoya-Nyirenda, asked business owners to stop the behavior of employing children, saying it denies the children of their right to education.