Protest against human trafficking
ST GEORGE’S Park in Port Elizabeth was ringed by hundreds of protesters who took part in an anti-slavery #WalkForFreedom organised by global anti-human trafficking organisation A.21.
The Saturday awareness campaign was the first of its kind in Nelson Mandela Bay and consisted of marchers dressed in black walking in silence and single-file twice round St George’s Park, a distance of 4.4km.
The purpose of the walk was to highlight that human slavery is something that is not spoken about, yet it grows continuously.
“Human trafficking is modernday slavery, not something we should be tip-toeing around,” Bay sports, recreation, arts and culture councillor Siyasanga Sijadu said.
“It is a major setback to development, especially in Africa.”
Participant Debbie Glover said the bandana she was wearing around her mouth indicated “the voiceless people who are victims of human trafficking”.
“While I was walking it was easy to reflect and imagine how it must feel to be in a foreign country, drug dependent and with no relatives,” she said.
“Human trafficking is real and it steals the lives of many people.
“Today we are here to speak for all people who are victims of human trafficking.”
A.21 volunteer Sanette Cavallari said human trafficking was more than sex-trafficking and prostitution, it was also the exploitation of any human being whose rights were infringed and who was unable to do anything about it.
“Human trafficking is a growing phenomenon especially here in the Eastern Cape,” she said.
“People are lured from the rural areas to cities with job opportunities that do not exist.
“Traffickers use the desperation and minimal knowledge of these innocent jobseekers to exploit them.”