Need for collaboration to fight trafficking

WHILE South Africa has made strides in combating human trafficking, adequate data collection and collaboration was needed to get a better grip on the problem.

This was the thrust of the first day of the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Co-ordination Workshop in Pretoria yesterday.

Although minimal and scattered data was available on “modern day slavery”, indications were that the problem was growing rapidly, said Zhuldyz Akisheva, regional representative of the UN office on drugs and crime.

Akisheva said the main challenge, especially for South Africa, was a lack of data, making it difficult to clearly determine how severe things were. For that reason, the organisation was working with the Department of Justice and Correctional Services in hosting workshops for all law enforcement agencies to come up with a unified approach.

Arno Schaefer, head of co-operation with the EU delegation to South Africa, said even with the lack of official statistics from the various departments, work could still be done.

Deputy Minister of Justice and Correctional Services John Jeffery said despite recent reports of human trafficking in the country, great strides had been made as evidenced by the 2016 global slavery index, placing South Africa 27th out of 167 countries battling the problem.

In addition, the US state department Trafficking in Persons 2017 report notes the SA government had demonstrated “increased efforts”.