Gone are the days when human trafficking felt like an obscure crime that occurs under the cover of night in far off places we have never heard of.
Every so often we hear of suspected human trafficking cases, and it is likely that you and I could have already interacted with a trafficked person(s) without even knowing it.
This as police rescued 44 illegal immigrants who were found locked in a house in Gauteng’s Parkmore suburb recently.
It was also reported in March that over 30 Ethiopian nationals were able to escape from a house in Johannesburg’s Lombardy East. In that case, it is suspected that the 30 were victims of a human trafficking syndicate.
In January, over 20 Ethiopians were rescued from a house in Johannesburg. The rescue followed a similar one in August 2024 where 82 Ethiopians were also found at a house in Johannesburg.
Additionally, human trafficking does not only take place on home soil. In March, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) confirmed that 23 South Africans who were part of a group of 7000 people from various countries, were rescued from Myanmar.
Before leaving South African shores in 2024, the men and women were lured by an employment agency to Thailand under the pretences of lucrative jobs that were advertised on various social media platforms.
According to DIRCO, the adverts promised the victims good salaries, free accommodation, comprehensive travel expenses, and other lucrative benefits. However, once in Thailand, they were transported to Myanmar against their will.
They were held captive for more than four months in a cybercrime compound in Myanmar, which borders Thailand.
“The crime of human trafficking is a hidden one. It is a very different one in the sense that you are given promises of a better life through whatever means elsewhere. You wilfully participate in those engagements without knowing that as soon as you arrive at your destination, what you have been promised is no longer there,” said Deputy Director-General (DDG) Lucky Mohalaba.
Mohalaba is the DDG for Court Administration at the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ&CD).
“The courts are currently dealing with those matters [of human trafficking] and it ranges from sexual exploitation to forced labour,” he said in an interview with SAnews.
Legislation
He added that there are other forms of crimes in relation to the “Trafficking in Persons Act which may include harbouring, transporting [and] assisting in whatever form that those who have been trafficked are able to be moved around within our borders.”
This as the objects of South Africa’s Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Act 2013, among others, are to give effect to the country’s obligations concerning the trafficking of persons in terms of international agreements and to provide for the prevention of trafficking in persons and for the protection of and assistance to victims of trafficking, among others.
According to the legislation, any person who delivers, recruits, transports, transfers, harbours, sells, exchanges, leases or receives another person within or across the borders of the Republic, by means of the threat of harm, abduction and kidnapping among others, for the purpose of any form or manner of exploitation, is guilty of the offence of trafficking in persons.
It also states that any person who adopts a child, facilitated or secured through legal or illegal means; or concludes a forced marriage with another person, within or across the borders of the Republic, for exploitation purposes of that child or other person in any form, is guilty of an offence.
A person convicted of an offence of trafficking (by delivering, recruiting, transporting transferring harbouring and selling among others another person by means of a threat of harm, fraud and kidnapping among others, is liable to a fine not exceeding R100 million or imprisonment, including imprisonment for life, or such imprisonment without the option of a fine or both.
According to the National Prosecuting Agency, the passing of the trafficking legislation is a result of South Africa’s ratification of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children.
Additionally, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said the protocol -which was adopted by the United Nations in November 2000 - is the world’s primary legal instrument to combat human trafficking.
Mohalaba stressed that government is tackling human trafficking.
“What we can say to the public is that government is doing quite a lot of work in relation to this matter. But working together with civil society as well as communities, as a department we are of the view that we can do a lot to further curb instances and the incidence of trafficking in persons in South Africa,” he said from his office at the DOJ&CD.
Increased effort
There is tangible evidence that the work government is doing in this area is paying off with the county having moved to a better spot on the United States of America’s (USA) annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report.
In 2024, South Africa moved from Tier 2 Watch List of the report to Tier 2.
Released in June last year, the report, which is available on the US Department of State website among others, notes that while South Africa does not “fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking… [it] is making significant efforts to do so.”
“The government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared with the previous reporting period; therefore South Africa was upgraded to Tier 2. 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,” the report stated.
It also took note of government’s National Inter-Ministerial Committee for Trafficking in Persons (NICTIP) to strengthen anti-trafficking efforts which included the Border Management Authority, the Anti-Money Laundering Integrated Task Team and the Financial Intelligence Center.
He said that work done includes ensuring that there is domestic legislation in place that deals with trafficking in persons and that the country has in place mechanisms to identify, assess victims or suspected victims of trafficking and ensuring that there are shelters to accommodate victims while court processes continue.
“As a result of our responses, we moved to Tier 2 as these are some of the issues the country has addressed. Of course, our aim is to ensure that we move a level higher up which will include putting more effort into ensuring that there’s appropriate training for officials that are dealing with these matters. We are working on this,” he explained.
According to the TIP, the placement of countries into various tiers is not based on the size of a country’s problem “but on the extent of government efforts to meet the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s (TVPA) minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking.”
These standards include the prohibition of severe forms of trafficking in person and punishing acts of such trafficking.
Tier 2 Watch List countries are those whose governments don’t fully meet the TVPA’s minimum standards but are making moves to “bring themselves into compliance” with the standards.
Tier 2 countries are those whose governments do not fully meet the minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance. Additionally, Tier 1 countries are those in which governments fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.
The TIP also has Tier 3 countries whereby governments do not fully meet the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.
Mohalaba added that the NICTIP which the department and the NPA are co-chairing, is “seized with coordinating a lot of efforts around the trafficking in persons across the country.”
“It also includes NGOs [non-government organisations] who take part in the discussions so that all of us working together are able to move our country forward and prevent this scourge in trafficking of persons.”
The report however flagged several issues including that law enforcement did not have the capacity and training to refer victims of trafficking to care and that victim services remained insufficient among others.
The report states that over “180 countries have ratified or acceded to the United Nations (UN) Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons (the UN TIP Protocol), which defines trafficking in persons and contains obligations to prevent and combat the crime.”
Collaboration
South Africa’s Parliament passed the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons, 2013 Act which came into operation in August 2015.
“Again, we must appreciate the collaboration amongst the law enforcement agencies and particularly communities and civil society to ensure that these serious matters are addressed.
The act requires the DOJ&CD to develop the draft National and Policy Framework (NPF) which also requires the Minister of Justice to table the approved NPF in Parliament within one year after the commencement of the Act.
Added to that, the NFP is to be reviewed within three years after its publication in the government gazette and at least once every five years thereafter. The first NPF was approved by the Justice Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS) cluster in 2019 with the revised one having been approved by Cabinet in August 2023. It was tabled in Parliament in February 2024.
The framework comprises four pillars - namely: prevention, protection, prosecution and partnerships.
“Trafficking is an international crime, and States have been encouraged to put in laws that deal with this. We are using the NFP to compliment the legislation working together with civil society to make sure that we combat and deal with issues of trafficking in persons,” said the DDG.
The NPF states that trafficking in persons is a “serious crime and a grave violation of human rights posing a serious challenge to communities and to society at large.”
In the document, government states that it is committed to preventing trafficking, as well as to assist and protect victims and to prosecute perpetrators.
“People go to great lengths to ensure that when people are trafficked, that it falls within the ambit of organised crime. We really want to appeal to the public that we should be vigilant when we see instances of people being trafficked in our villages, townships, in towns or any other areas we see the potential of people being trafficked,” said the DDG.
He added that the review of the policy framework will be made in 2027.
“As a country, we remain resolute in working with whichever country across the globe to ensure that the issues of trafficking in persons are actually made a priority across the world.” -SAnews.gov.za
