Human Trafficking

A Look at Trafficking in South Africa

Posted on April 8, 2010

People from Europe, Asia and many other parts of the world are trafficked into South Africa for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Even before the announcement of South Africa as host of the FIFA World Cup™ (the world’s largest soccer tournament), local and international traffickers coerced and tricked unsuspecting victims, forcing them into prostitution and other forms of sexual slavery. Now trafficking is increasing even more, since traffickers and local pimps see the World Cup as an opportunity to drastically increase profits from thousands of soccer fans looking for a “good time.”

“This is an African World Cup and every African must somehow benefit from it,” one trafficker said in an article on www.bizcommunity.com. “We are not criminals, and we have done nothing wrong. On the contrary, we are helping people help themselves and in the process, helping Africa to eradicate poverty and destitution. There is so much misery and hunger out there, and the [World Cup] is a golden opportunity to be seized with both hands.”

Trafficking and the World Cup

• For the past five years, human traffickers have been using the 2010 FIFA World CupTM as bait to lure people to work in South Africa.
  ~ Issa Sikiti da Silva, “2010 FIFA World Cup boosts Africa’s human trafficking,” www.bizcommunity.com
• More than 500,000 international visitors are expected in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup, and more than 500 criminal gangs are estimated to be involved in human trafficking for the sex trade in South Africa.
  ~ Frederico Links, “Southern Africa: Human Trafficking and Prostitution to Surge Ahead of 2010 World Cup,” Namibian, 2008
• Since 2004, the year South Africa was chosen to host the World Cup, human trafficking “offices” have opened in various African countries, where unscrupulous people working as “agents” register desperate people dying to get to South Africa to seek any form of employment or business opportunities.
  ~ Issa Sikiti da Silva, “2010 FIFA World Cup boosts Africa’s human trafficking,” www.bizcommunity.com

Trafficking in South Africa

• South Africa is a source, transit and destination country for men, women and children who are being trafficked.
  ~ International Organisation for Migration’s 2006 report on the trafficking of women in East and Southern Africa
• Victims of trafficking within South Africa are reported to be recruited from rural areas or informal settlements and transported to the urban centers of Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Durban.
  ~ “No Experience Necessary: the Internal Trafficking of Persons in South Africa,” IOM, 2008
• Most of the concern about vulnerable children crossing borders into southern Africa focuses on organized trafficking. People – mostly women and children – are forcibly taken from their homes or made false promises about work and schooling abroad, and then subjected to sex work and exploitative labor.
  ~ “Our Broken Dreams,” a report by Save the Children UK (SCUK) and Save the Children Norway (SCN)
• Refugees are both victims and perpetrators of trafficking to South Africa. As male refugees encounter unemployment, some choose to recruit female relatives from their countries of origin. Once the women have been escorted to South Africa, they are sexually assaulted as an initiation to sex work. The refugee trafficker takes the earnings the woman receives as a sex worker.
  ~ “Seduction, Sale, and Slavery: Trafficking in Women and Children for Sexual Exploitation in Southern Africa,” IOM, Pretoria, South Africa, 2003
• Street children are coerced or forcibly abducted by white men and taken across the border into South Africa with the consent of border officials. The children are held captive in private houses where they are sexually and sadistically assaulted over several days by small groups of men. The children are finally returned to the border or deposited on town streets to find their own way home. Street children are also trafficked by long-distance truck drivers, who use them as sex slaves on their routes.
  ~ “Seduction, Sale, and Slavery: Trafficking in Women and Children for Sexual Exploitation in Southern Africa,” IOM, Pretoria, South Africa, 2003
• An estimated 1,000 Mozambican victims are recruited, transported and exploited every year, earning traffickers approximately US$137,650 annually. The victims include females between the ages of 14 and 24. They are offered jobs, smuggled across the border into South Africa, and sexually assaulted as an initiation for sex work. The girls are then sold to brothels, sold as slaves on private order, or shopped around to mineworkers as “wives.”
  ~ “Seduction, Sale, and Slavery: Trafficking in Women and Children for Sexual Exploitation in Southern Africa,” IOM, Pretoria, South Africa, 2003
• Women and girls are recruited in Malawi by long-distance truckers who promise marriage, jobs or educational opportunities in South Africa. Once in South Africa, the victim is held as the trafficker’s sex slave, and he will bring clients who will pay him to have sex with her. Malawian businesswomen also traffic women and girls overland to brothels in South Africa.
  ~ “Seduction, Sale, and Slavery: Trafficking in Women and Children for Sexual Exploitation in Southern Africa,” IOM, Pretoria, South Africa, 2003
• Trafficked victims from Thailand are told they must earn US$7,500 for their freedom, and they are confined and forced to work 12-16 hours a day, even when ill, until the debt is repaid. South African clients may marry victims by buying their contracts, although some women are forced to continue doing sex work after the marriage to earn profits for their husbands.
  ~ “Seduction, Sale, and Slavery: Trafficking in Women and Children for Sexual Exploitation in Southern Africa,” IOM, Pretoria, South Africa, 2003
• Triad-linked Chinese or Taiwanese agents recruit Chinese women by promising work in Chinese-owned businesses in South Africa or the prospect of studying in English language schools. These women are forced into sex work indefinitely, they have no freedom of movement, and their traffickers take their earnings.
  ~ “Seduction, Sale, and Slavery: Trafficking in Women and Children for Sexual Exploitation in Southern Africa,” IOM, Pretoria, South Africa, 2003
• Russian and Bulgarian mafias traffic Russian and other Eastern European women to upscale South African brothels. The women are promised jobs but are not told that they must pay a debt of US$2,000 per month as sex workers. If they refuse to cooperate, they and their families back at home are threatened with violence.
  ~ “Seduction, Sale, and Slavery: Trafficking in Women and Children for Sexual Exploitation in Southern Africa,” IOM, Pretoria, South Africa, 2003