Mozambican guilty of child rape, trafficking

A Mozambican man who kept a 15-year-old girl locked up in his shack as a sex slave and repeatedly raped three other girls was yesterday convicted on a charge of human trafficking and seven of child rape.

Judge Vincent Ratshibvumo rejected the evidence of 46-yearold Raul Balele that the 15-year- old Mozambican girl he kept captive at Sonop informal settlement near Brits in North West, in 2015 had consented to come to South Africa to be his wife.

The judge also rejected Balele’s claim that his former girlfriend, her 11-year-old daughter and two of her friends, aged seven and 10, had conspired against him.

He found that Balele had paid for the 15-year-old girl to travel to South Africa with the intention of exploiting her as a sex slave, which qualified as human trafficking.

The judge accepted the girl’s evidence that Balele had brought her and her mother – a relative of Balele – to the country under the impression she was coming to work for him, but then kept her locked up and raped her for three days in a row.

She was already pregnant with his child when she managed to escape and laid criminal charges.

Ratshibvumo also established that Balele had raped his former girlfriend’s 11-year-old daughter and that he had earlier raped the same girl and two of her young friends one after the other after luring them into his shack.

Balele’s former girlfriend told the court that she had caught him with his underwear at his knees on top of her naked 11-year-old after waking up one night.

The trial continues.