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Human Trafficking In South Africa In The Spotlight As Couple Charged, Parents Warned Of Threat

By Jinger Jarrett
Published on: 22:28 PST, Jan 24, 2016

A Capetown couple was charged with human trafficking for sexual purposes in the Parow Regional Court. Because the charge is of a sexual nature, the identity of the couple won’t be released until they are officially charged. Previously the couple had appeared before Shaun Lea in the Goodwood District Court.

As reported in IOL News, Prosecutor Portia Chauke said that a charge sheet had not been formulated. As soon as the charge sheet was prepared, the contents of it, and the docket, would be made available to the defense attorney Leon van der Merwe. The couple has been set to appear before magistrate Elsa van Zyl again in March.

In another case, two other women, both Chinese, were brought before the court on charges of human trafficking. The charges against them were also of a sexual nature, and they were accused of procuring services of a sexual nature and also running a brothel. Both cases had been transferred from the Goodwood District Court because regional courts have greater power than district courts and can impose higher sentences.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, two former police officers have decided to do what they can to stop the human trafficking in South Africa because it is such a huge problem. Hundreds of children are sold into sex slavery every day, and at least 30,000 children are trafficked every year. The two police officers, Owen Musiker and Wayne van Onsellen, formed the organization Unchain Our Children to stop the human trafficking of children in South Africa. Both officers previously worked on child abuse cases for 25 years in Pretoria.

One of the reasons human trafficking is a problem in South Africa is that all economic levels of society are involved. It isn’t just the poor who sell their children into slavery. Middle and upper class families also sell their children, although the motivations for doing so are always different. This trend has caused human trafficking in South Africa to become a major problem.

According to The Citizen, parents are being warned against child traffickers. After a soccer scam in KwaZulu-Natal, the Department of Social Development warned parents to be extra vigilant. Five boys were recruited after they were told that they had each received a position in a top soccer training academy. Scams of this nature are frequently used to recruit children.

The Department issued a statement on the human trafficking scam saying the boys had been recovered and are receiving care.

“Four of the boys are under 18 years of age, and the fifth is 19 years old. As per the Children’s Act of 2005, the Department has placed the minors in a Child & Youth Care Centre (CYCC), and the 19-year-old is being assisted with shelter and care by the department’s Human Trafficking Unit. Our priority as DSD is to get the boys back home safely, and we are currently working on transporting the boys back home in conjunction with the parents and our DSD colleagues in KZN.”

Although statistics about human trafficking in South Africa are hard to come by, the United States reported that there were 41 cases of human trafficking in South Africa in 2015. Only about one percent of those who are sold into the human trafficking trade ever escape the life. Human trafficking in South Africa normally takes two forms: the sex slave trade and forced labor. It is big business in South Africa with estimated annual revenues of R1.9 trillion (Approximately $115+ million). One third of all the victims are children, while at least half of all people trafficked are female.

[Photo Credit Pixabay]

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