Email this page

News & Updates

Women and Children Trafficked at South African Border

South Africa is the main destination in Southern Africa for human trafficking and 60 percent of the victims are children and young girls under the age of 15. While South Africa is a signatory to the United Nations protocol on human trafficking, children's rights organisations warn that the 2010 Fifa World Cup could provide an ideal market for trafficked women and children - since no specific legislation exists.

Martus de Wet, a legal adviser for Doctors for Life, an organisation that looks after the interests of prostitutes, said there was "a huge need" for these specialised laws as organised crime syndicates dealing in human trafficking are difficult to prosecute.

Superintendent Rajen Aiyer, from the Durban organised crime unit, said the trafficking of women and children from Eastern Europe, South East Asia, Thailand, Taiwan and across Africa was still a major problem in the city.

"These women are usually lured from their home countries with the promise of work in SA," he said. "When they get here their travel documents and passports are confiscated by the traffickers." The girls, he said, were told they would get their documents back when they paid their travel expenses.

"But they get caught in a debt/bondage situation."

Aiyer said there were cases of desperate parents selling children for as little as $2 000 with the promise that they would receive an education. Some of these children land up in SA. Aiyer said the Durban organised crime unit took "an aggressive stance" on human trafficking and there had been a number of convictions.

The After Dark night club in Prince Alfred Street where 16 Thai women were found to be working in a brothel. They were charged and found guilty of prostitution, keeping a brothel and contravening the immigration act. The women were later deported. Earlier this year nine Thai women were kept as sex slaves at a house in Umbilo.

Debbie Toughey, a former prostitute and brothel manager said there was a "common misconception" that human trafficking occurred only across borders. "It is not uncommon in SA for women and children to be trafficked within the borders and sold to brothels in different cities," she said.

She described the trafficking chain as "extensive and highly organised". Victims, said Toughey, are passed from person to person. "In the case of cross border trafficking, girls are kept in appalling conditions, smuggled into the country in the backs of trucks, in taxis, cars and in some cases even on foot or in containers as stowaways on ships. They are beaten and abused and often do not speak any South African language".

Tara, a former prostitute, said more and more young girls under the age of 10 were arriving in the city from rural areas. The South African Law Reform commission is currently drafting legislation criminalising the trafficking of humans.

Adpated from: "Women and children trafficked at SA border."  18 September 2007.