Is It A Crime In Zimbabwe To Recruit Zimbabweans To Join A Foreign Army?

YES - BUT NOT IN THE WAY SOUTH AFRICA DOES IT. AND THAT GAP IS KILLING OUR SONS.

The answer is short, sharp, and terrible in its simplicity:

Yes, it is a crime. But Zimbabwe has no single law that says, in one clean sentence, "Thou shalt not recruit a Zimbabwean to fight for Russia or any other country."

South Africa has that law. Zimbabwe does not.

And that is why the nine Zimbabweans were arrested in Johannesburg, not in Harare. That is why the traffickers are arrested in Harare for trafficking. not for recruiting. That is why our sons are dying in Donetsk while our lawyers are still arguing about which Act applies.

Let us dissect the law, like a surgeon dissects a body, and find where the crime lives.

1. The Nine At OR Tambo — Why South Africa Could Arrest Them And Zimbabwe Could Not

On Sunday, 8 November, five men were seized at OR Tambo International Airport, four more at a hotel in Bruma:

Weight Mudhanyane, 23. Javangwe Munyaradzi, 41. Wesley Sothole, 24. Abel Muchenje, 40. Knowledge Ndunduma, 46. Bobo Chinhondo, 43. Batsirai Shereni, 24. Liberty Shereni, 44. Niobe Zhou, 37.

They were charged under South Africa's Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, 15 of 1998.

That Act is a sword. It says, in plain language: No person in South Africa — citizen or foreigner on South African soil — shall render foreign military assistance, shall be recruited to fight in a foreign war, shall offer himself as a mercenary, without the permission of the National Conventional Arms Control Committee.

South Africa does not need to prove you fired a shot. It only needs to prove you _intended_ to go. The intention, the ticket, the meeting in the hotel, the WhatsApp message — that is enough.

Zimbabwe has no such sword.

If those same nine men had been arrested at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport in Harare, the police would have had to scramble. They would have had to say: "We arrest you for… what, exactly?"

For trafficking? For fraud? For conspiracy? For attempting to commit an offence that is not an offence in Zimbabwe?

That is the scandal. That is the legal wound through which our boys are bleeding out to Russia.

2. The Laws That DO Make It A Crime In Zimbabwe — The Seven Spears

Zimbabwe does not have one law. It has seven spears, each pointed at a different part of the trafficker's body. Used together, they can kill the trade. Used separately, they leave gaps.

SPEAR ONE: The Constitution of Zimbabwe — Section 211, 212, 213

The Constitution is the supreme law. It says the Defence Forces are established for the defence of Zimbabwe. It says no person, no organisation, no foreign power, shall raise, maintain or deploy an armed force in Zimbabwe except as provided by the Constitution.

No citizen has a constitutional right to raise an army for Russia on Zimbabwean soil. No recruiter has a constitutional right to enlist Zimbabweans into a foreign army. The State's monopoly on violence is not a suggestion. It is sovereignty.

To recruit Zimbabweans to kill Ukrainians for Russia is to usurp the sovereign power of the President as Commander-in-Chief. It is to create a private foreign legion inside a sovereign republic. That is not employment. That is treason in slow motion.

SPEAR TWO: Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act [Chapter 9:23] — Section 5, Section 20, Section 22, Section 24, Section 30

This is the Criminal Code. It is the Bible of Zimbabwean criminal law.

Section 24 — Recruiting or Training Insurgents, Bandits, Saboteurs or Terrorists:
Any person who recruits, trains, or assists in recruiting another person to become an insurgent, bandit, saboteur or terrorist commits a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment.

Now, is a Zimbabwean recruited to fight for Russia an "insurgent"? Not in the technical sense — Russia is a recognised State, not an insurgent group. But if the recruitment is to fight in a war that Zimbabwe has not authorised, to kill, to destroy, to commit acts of violence abroad, the State can and must argue by analogy: you are recruiting Zimbabweans to commit violence that Zimbabwe has not sanctioned.

Section 20 — Treason:
If a Zimbabwean, in time of war or public emergency, does anything which assists any other State to engage in hostile action against Zimbabwe or its allies, that is treason.

Zimbabwe is not at war with Ukraine. But Zimbabwe is a member of the African Union, a friend of both Russia and Ukraine, and a State that has declared a policy of non-alignment and peace. To drag Zimbabwe, by stealth, into a European war, to make Zimbabweans killers in a war Zimbabwe did not declare, is to endanger the safety of the State.

Section 30 — Causing Disaffection Among Police Force or Defence Forces:
If the recruiter targets serving soldiers, ex-soldiers, police officers — as they do, because they want trained men — and induces them to desert, to break their oath, to abandon their post for Russian money, that is a crime. It is causing disaffection. It is seducing the guardians of the nation to become mercenaries for a foreign flag.

Section 5 — Territoriality:
This is the most important section for the nine men. It says a person may be tried in Zimbabwe for a crime committed partly outside Zimbabwe, if the conduct that completed the crime took place inside Zimbabwe, or if the crime is against the public security of Zimbabwe.

In other words: Even if they were arrested in South Africa, even if they signed a contract in Moscow, if the recruitment _began_ in Bulawayo, in Harare, in Lupane — in a Facebook group, in a WhatsApp call, in a hotel in Harare — Zimbabwe can prosecute them on their return. The crime was born here. Zimbabwe can try it here.

SPEAR THREE: Trafficking in Persons Act [Chapter 9:25] — The Spear The Government Is Actually Using

This is the spear that has drawn blood.

In March 2026, four men — Obert Hlavati, Tonderai Maphosa, Tanaka Malcolm Gwarada, and Edson Dudzayi Nyamudeza — appeared before Harare Magistrate Jessi Kufa facing human trafficking charges. Prosecutors allege they conspired with a Russian national identified only as Ivan to traffic six Zimbabweans to Russia, promising them firefighting jobs, receiving US$8,167 through EcoCash and a bureau de change.

Government spokesperson Nick Mangwana on 16 March 2026 formally classified the recruitment as human trafficking. Information Minister Zhemu Soda said: "Our citizens are being preyed upon by unscrupulous individuals and networks who operate with complete disregard of human life. Traffickers use sophisticated methods, often leveraging social media platforms as their primary hunting ground."

And he was right. Legally, he was right.

Trafficking is not only about sex. Trafficking is about _deception for exploitation_. If you promise a man a job as a firefighter, a driver, a security guard, and you deliver him to a trench in Donetsk, you have trafficked him. If you take his passport, if you coerce him to sign a contract in Russian he cannot read, if you profit from his death, you are a trafficker. The penalty is up to life imprisonment.

This is why the government says 18 Zimbabweans have died, 66 are still trapped. They were not volunteers. They were victims. They were trafficked.

SPEAR FOUR: Defence Act [Chapter 11:02]

The Defence Act governs the Zimbabwe Defence Forces. It makes it a crime to desert, to induce a soldier to desert, to harbour a deserter, to wear a foreign uniform, to impersonate a soldier, to obstruct the Defence Forces.

If a recruiter approaches a serving ZNA soldier and says, "Leave the army, come to Russia, I will pay you $2,500," that recruiter commits an offence under the Defence Act. If the soldier leaves, he commits desertion. He can be court-martialled, even if he is in Russia.

For ex-soldiers, the Act does not bind them in the same way. But the moral bind remains: a man who once swore an oath to defend Zimbabwe cannot swear an oath to defend Russia without betraying the first oath.

SPEAR FIVE: Labour Act [Chapter 28:01] and Private Employment Agencies

No person shall carry on the business of recruiting labour for employment beyond Zimbabwe except in terms of a recruiting permit. No agency shall recruit Zimbabweans for foreign employment without a licence, without disclosure of the true nature of the work, without a contract in a language the worker understands.

These "agents" — the Tshaka the Zulus, the Pomas, the Ivans — have no permit. They have no licence. They have no office. They are unlicensed labour brokers, operating in the shadows of Facebook. Every recruitment they do is an unlawful recruitment.

SPEAR SIX: Fraud, Misrepresentation, and Conspiracy — Criminal Code, Chapter 9:23, Part on Fraud

If you tell a man he will be a firefighter and you make him a soldier, you have committed fraud. If you take money from Russia for his head, and you keep his salary when he dies, you have committed theft by false pretences. If you conspire with others to do it, you have committed conspiracy.

The government's Permanent Secretary Nick Mangwana said it brutally: "They want you dead, so they keep every penny. Recruitment agencies receive both the recruits' salaries and their own fees, from which they are supposed to pay the individuals they enlist."

That is not recruitment. That is murder for profit.

SPEAR SEVEN: International Law — The OAU Convention on Mercenarism (1977) and the UN Mercenary Convention (1989)

Zimbabwe is a signatory to the 1977 OAU Convention for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa. That Convention, born out of the blood of Angola and Congo, says mercenarism is a crime against peace and security in Africa. States must punish mercenaries and those who recruit them.

In 2004, Zimbabwe arrested 67 suspected mercenaries at Harare Airport, on their way to Equatorial Guinea to stage a coup. Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge said then: "Mercenarism is a scourge. We must use the severest punishment in our statutes, including capital punishment. Zimbabwe has an obligation under a 1992 protocol of the Organization of African Unity to discourage mercenary activity on the continent."

That principle has not changed. If it was a crime to recruit mercenaries to overthrow Equatorial Guinea in 2004, it is a crime to recruit mercenaries to fight for Russia in Ukraine in 2026.

A UN inquiry has now found that Russian authorities committed human trafficking by recruiting foreign nationals from 29 countries through deception and coercion. Ukraine estimates more than 1,700 Africans have been recruited. Zimbabwe alone: 530 Zimbabweans recruited between January and September 2026, up from 65 in the whole of 2025.

3. So, Is The Recruit A Criminal Or A Victim?

This is the hardest question, and the law must answer it with both steel and mercy.

The recruiter is a criminal. Always. Without exception. He is a trafficker, a fraudster, a merchant of human flesh. He must be arrested, prosecuted, and jailed for life. No sympathy. No bail. No mercy.

The recruit is both.

If he _knew_ he was going to fight, if he _voluntarily_ signed a military contract, if he _wanted_ to be a mercenary for money, then he has committed a crime under South African law (if he transited South Africa), and he may have committed a crime under Zimbabwean law on his return — conspiracy, or attempting to join a foreign force without authority, or trafficking himself.

But if he was _deceived_ — if he was told he would be a firefighter, a driver, a builder, and he woke up in a trench — then he is a victim of trafficking. He is not a criminal. He is a trafficked person. The law must protect him, repatriate him, rehabilitate him, not punish him.

That is why the nine men at OR Tambo are presumed innocent. That is why we must not call them mercenaries before the court has spoken. They may be victims who were saved at the gate. They may be men who were about to be trafficked. The arrest saved them from death, even if it put them in a cell.

The distinction matters. The law must be sharp enough to cut the trafficker, and soft enough to heal the victim.

4. The Gap — And The Urgent Call For A New Law

And yet, after all these spears, the truth remains: Zimbabwe needs its own Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act.

Zimbabwe needs a law that says, in one sentence, as South Africa does:

"No Zimbabwean citizen, and no person resident in Zimbabwe, shall, without the written permission of the President, enlist in, be recruited to, or render military assistance to any foreign army, foreign armed group, or foreign war."

Such a law would do three things:

1. It would stop the argument. No more scrambling for which Act applies. No more using trafficking law to prosecute a mercenary case. One law, one crime, one punishment.

2. It would protect the victim. The law must distinguish between the trafficker (who gets life) and the trafficked (who gets protection and repatriation). It must provide for the return of bodies, for DNA identification, for compensation to families.

3. It would protect Zimbabwe's sovereignty. Zimbabwe cannot be a country that exports soldiers to foreign wars like it exports tobacco. Zimbabwe cannot be a country whose sons die in Donbas while its Parliament is silent. Zimbabwe must say: Our sons are not for sale. Our flag is not for hire.

Parliament must pass that law. Now. Before another 18 die. Before another 66 are trapped. Before another nine are arrested at a foreign airport because Zimbabwe could not arrest them at its own.

5. Conclusion — The Law Must Speak, Before The Drone Speaks

The law is not an abstraction. The law is a mother in Nkayi waiting for her son. The law is a father in Bulawayo who has not heard from his boy in six months. The law is a wife in Harare who gets a WhatsApp message that says "Missing in action" — which means dead, but Russia does not want to pay.

To recruit a Zimbabwean to fight in Russia is to commit a crime against that mother, against that father, against that wife, against the Constitution, against the State, against humanity.

It is trafficking. It is fraud. It is treason against the spirit of sovereignty. It is mercenarism. It is murder by proxy.

South Africa has shown us the law. Zimbabwe must now show us the will.

Arrest the recruiters. Protect the recruits. Bring home the 66. Bring home the bodies of the 18. Pass the law that says: No Zimbabwean shall be sold to a foreign war.

Because if we do not, the drones will continue to do what the law has failed to do: they will stop our sons, not at the airport, but in the sky, with fire, with shrapnel, with death.

And then, it will be too late for law. It will be too late for mercy. It will be too late for anything except tears.

Note: The nine Zimbabweans arrested in South Africa on 8 November 2026 are presumed innocent. The charges against them under South Africa's Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act are untested in court. This article does not assert their guilt. It asserts that the recruitment of Zimbabweans to foreign wars is, under Zimbabwean law as it stands, and under international law, a serious criminal offence and that Zimbabwe urgently needs a dedicated Foreign Military Assistance Act to close the gap.