SA’s sex trafficking rages on — report

• US state department highlights complicity of SA, Lesotho officials

The 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report, produced by the US state department, says complicity between SA and Lesotho officials has enabled sex trafficking of Basotho women into SA to continue with “impunity”.

The report said that traffickers recruit victims from neighbouring countries and rural areas in SA, particularly Gauteng, and exploit them in sex trafficking locally and in urban centres, such as Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Bloemfontein.

“Observers reported prior cases of sex trafficking of Basotho women from Lesotho in SA brothels; however, due to alleged official complicity of both Basotho and SA officials linked to the brothels, they continued to operate with impunity,” the report said.

“Traffickers exploit Basotho women in sex trafficking and domestic servitude and men in labour trafficking, particularly in the mining and textile sectors, in SA.”

It was found that SA’s high unemployment and socioeconomic stratification increased vulnerability to exploitation, particularly of youth, black women, and foreign migrants.

The report identifies social media as one of the platforms traffickers use to find victims. This is done via fake job advertisements on social media and classified advertisement forums, including advertisements for webcam modelling, hospitality, mining and domestic work.

“Some fake advertisements, particularly for domestic work, specifically request Zimbabwean or Malawian applicants. Despite high unemployment, migrants travel from East, Central and Southern Africa to SA looking for economic opportunity, particularly from Ethiopia and Mozambique, and are vulnerable to exploitation,” said the report.

“Syndicates, predominantly operated by Nigerians, force women from Nigeria and countries bordering SA into commercial sex, primarily in brothels and other commercial front establishments. SA organised trafficking syndicates exploit girls as young as 10 in sex trafficking.

“Mozambican crime syndicates use the eastern border of Kruger National Park in Mpumalanga, enabled by corrupt officials, to transport migrants to other parts of the country for forced labour, through the same routes used by syndicates to facilitate other crimes.”

While most traffickers were South Africans and Nigerians, nationals from Bangladesh, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, China and Ethiopia were also involved in human-trafficking activities in SA.

SA police last week rescued 90 Ethiopian migrants who were being held against their will at a property in Johannesburg. Police said the migrants, believed to be victims of human trafficking, were packed into small rooms and kept locked up.

The US state department report has urged SA to increase efforts to investigate and prosecute trafficking crimes and seek adequate penalties for convicted

traffickers, including complicit officials, which should involve significant prison terms.

In the report the state department calls on SA to proactively identify trafficking victims by screening for trafficking indicators during law-enforcement operations and labour inspections, and among vulnerable populations, including migrant workers, individuals in commercial sex, refugees and asylum seekers.

“The government of SA does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but is making significant efforts to do so. The government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared with the previous reporting period; therefore SA was upgraded to Tier 2,” said the report.

“These efforts included increasing prosecutions of traffickers; identifying and referring more trafficking victims to protection services; and increasing the number of shelters available to assist trafficking victims.”