Sunday, February 16, 2025

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Human traffickers exploiting local and foreign victims in South Africa, including miners and sex workers

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According to the latest US State Department Trafficking in Persons Report, human traffickers are exploiting both domestic and foreign victims in South Africa, with forced labour, sex work and illegal mining high on their agenda.

Traffickers force both adults and children, particularly those from socioeconomically disadvantaged communities and rural areas as well as migrants, into begging, domestic service, mining, food services, construction, criminal activities, agriculture, and the fishing sector. Traffickers may exploit South Africans in forced labour on vineyards and fruit and vegetable farms across the country, the report stated.

“High unemployment and socioeconomic stratification increased vulnerability to exploitation, particularly of youth, black women, and foreign migrants. Traffickers recruit victims who are unemployed and struggle with substance use, and commonly use substances to maintain control of victims, including children. Parents with drug addictions sometimes exploit their children in sex trafficking to pay for drugs,” the report found.

Traffickers entice foreign and South African women and girls with the promise of marriage and then exploit them in labour trafficking. Abuse of the custom of ukuthwala, a cultural norm that can manifest into forced marriage, may contribute to vulnerability of girls and women to exploitation, particularly in the Eastern Cape and KZN.

Syndicates, predominantly operated by Nigerians, force women from Nigeria and countries bordering South Africa into commercial sex, primarily in brothels and other commercial-front establishments. South African organized trafficking syndicates exploit girls as young as 10 in sex trafficking, according to the report. Some well-known brothels, previously identified as sex trafficking locations, continue to operate with officials’ tacit approval. In some cases, traffickers exploit women in brothels disguised as guesthouses.

Syndicates also recruit South African women to Europe, where traffickers force some into sex trafficking, domestic service, or drug smuggling.

Official complicity in trafficking crimes, especially by police and immigration officials, facilitates the operation of traffickers and organised syndicates engaging in 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.

Syndicates also exploit miners, both South African and foreign migrants, sometimes known as Zama Zamas, in illegal gold, diamond, and coal mining; miners are exposed to dangerous conditions and sometimes killed by gangs vying for control of mines.

An international organization reported that undocumented children are one of the most vulnerable populations in South Africa for exploitation, including for forced criminality. Children are vulnerable to forced criminality by criminal organizations, particularly drug trafficking. Boys from Eswatini and Lesotho are trafficked for forced labour in illegal mining. Children are exploited in sex trafficking, particularly in Gauteng and Western Cape, including in massage parlours. Some families living in poverty exploit their daughters in sex trafficking in exchange for money and goods. Some families rent out their children to begging syndicates in Durban.

Traffickers operating in South Africa are mostly from Nigeria and South Africa; however, there were reports of traffickers from Bangladesh, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Owners of privately-owned PRC businesses exploit PRC nationals, South African, and Malawian adults and children in factories, sweatshops, and other businesses.

Recruiters entice women from the Middle East, Asia, and countries bordering South Africa with offers of legitimate employment but, upon arrival, some subject the women to sex trafficking, and forced labour in the service sector or domestic servitude. The US report found that traffickers exploit Basotho women in sex trafficking and domestic servitude and men in labour trafficking, particularly in the mining and textile sectors, in South Africa.

The State Department’s investigation into trafficking in South Africa ranked the country as a Tier 2 country, which means while the government does not fully meet minimum standards, there is a concerted effort to bring South Africa into compliance with these standards. The report notes “the government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared with the previous reporting period,” which resulted in an upgrade to Tier 2 status (Tier 1 is the highest ranking, indicating the government has demonstrated “appreciable progress,” and represents a responsibility to continue combating human trafficking).

Demonstrated efforts by South Africa include the increase in prosecutions of traffickers, the identification of victims, and “increasing the number of shelters available to assist trafficking victims.”

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