Nine sex slave probes in East Cape
SPECIALIST police units have launched nine investigations into human trafficking in the Eastern Cape, with Port Elizabeth and East London the hotspots, according to authorities.
The nine form part of 15 ongoing investigations across the country into criminal activities that include sexual exploitation, drugs and cheap labour.
This emerged in the wake of the conviction last week of a domestic worker who recruited – and rented out – three children in a sex-for-hire scandal involving a farmer in Stutterheim near King William’s Town.
Police said yesterday that just last week they had received a tip that girls from Port Elizabeth had been lured to Pretoria by a trafficking syndicate.
Hawks spokesman Brigadier Hangwane Mulaudzi said East London and Port Elizabeth had been identified as points of operation for traffickers.
He declined to elaborate but said most victims were lured with job offers in the hospitality industry.
In attempts to counter the trafficking of people, police have formed various task teams that include detectives, state prosecutors and nonprofit organisations.
The investigations were launched last year.
At an anti-human trafficking seminar in Port Elizabeth last year, experts warned authorities they were only scratching the surface of the multimillion-rand industry in the country.
Estimates put global revenue from trafficking at a staggering R250-billion a year.
Of the nine investigations in the Eastern Cape, seven are criminal cases that are already in the court process and two are official formal inquiries.
Counter human-trafficking expert, lecturer and former Port Elizabeth investigator Marcel van der Watt said yesterday it was well known that traffickers targeted vulnerable communities and preyed on those looking for jobs.
“Most of these syndicates lure people with the offer of employment or any other opportunity that may increase earning potential.”
In 2008, Van der Watt was the lead investigator in a case that led to the exposure of a syndicate operating in Bloemfontein with deep roots in Central, Port Elizabeth.
Van der Watt also worked on a case reported in August last year
where two girls – from Port Elizabeth and Durban – were working as prostitutes in Sunnyside, Pretoria.
Last week, a tip-off was received from the National Freedom network, which Van der Watt assists, that more Port Elizabeth girls had been lured to Pretoria by the syndicates.
“This just confirms that there is a definite link between Port Elizabeth and Pretoria,” he said.
“It is a fact that South Africa is a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking. “It is rife all over the country,” he said. Van der Watt is developing a computer software tool aimed at assisting human-trafficking investigators, allowing them to streamline information, link incidents and gather evidence faster.
Port Elizabeth trauma counsellor and activist John Preller – a key lobbyist for the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Act to be signed into law – said the Eastern Cape was one of several provinces in which trafficking syndicates were operating.
“There are a couple of factors which make Port Elizabeth a prime hotspot for this,” he said.
“We have all the ideal characteristics needed by traffickers, such as harbours, airports, main bus routes and so on.”
Preller said other factors were poverty and unemployment.
“We have enormous unemployment in the region, with many outlying villages and communities who simply do not have jobs.
“In many instances, the traffickers pose as businessmen and talent scouts, promising parents the world for their children, in addition to payment.
“They rely on vulnerable, desperate people wanting money and a better life.”
Those trafficked were often turned into drug addicts to ensure compliance, Preller said.
“Drug trafficking, sex slavery and dealing in drugs all form part of the same syndicate’s [mode of operation].”
Last week, Stutterheim farmer William Knoetze, 59, and a domestic worker, who cannot be named to protect her daughter’s identity, pleaded guilty in the Stutterheim Magistrate’s Court to 28 charges, including child-trafficking for sexual purposes and rape.
The woman also managed to “recruit” two other children, aged 11 and 15, into the sex ring.