Slave girls of the sex trade

2004-03-05 22:01

Marlene Malan

Cape Town - Stacey, 23,* and Laetitia, 20,* speak so softly that at times it's difficult to hear what they're saying.

There are long, silent pauses as they battle to tell the story of how, in the heart of Cape Town, they were abducted and lured to strange houses.

Today, thanks to the children's rights organisation Molo Songololo, they're on the road to recovery - but it's a traumatic episode they'll never be able to just forget.

The two young women told a gathering on child trafficking in Cape Town on Wednesday how they had been ''stolen'' at the age of 14 and held as sex slaves.

Some girls escape, like they did. Others end up like Valencia Farmer, 14, of Eersterivier, who was murdered by her abductors in 1999.

Gunpoint

Stacey and a friend were forced at gunpoint into a car in Cape Town's city centre. Both were kept as sex slaves for days.

Laetitia said she and her friend had been invited to a party by a group of strange girls. They made the mistake of going. In the week that followed, they were beaten, forced to drink alcohol and made to smoke cannabis.

They were also raped and sodomised. On one occasion, Laetitia had to hear how her friend, from the room next door, cried out to her mother and to God.

"That was when I was in standard six," she says.

After her escape, it took seven years before she could talk about it - and then only with the help of Molo Songololo.

The organisation's Deborah Mobilyn says "the illegal practice is a growing problem. It is without exception linked to crime, prostitution, drug abuse and slavery".

An American study estimates that between 800 000 and 900 000 people are kidnapped worldwide every year.

In South Africa, women and children are not only shipped across borders but kidnapped and held right under our noses as well.

As Molo's Vanessa Anthony says, "that's why people must report anything they think looks suspicious".

Molo's investigation into the problem started in November 2000. Findings show that it's a highly lucrative industry and that victims are, without fail, forced into prostitution.

But there's also another, perhaps even darker side: drug trafficking, forced labour and organ trading.

So many rural girls between the ages of 18 and 25 can't resist the cities and the promise of work. It's on these innocents that the criminals and gangs prey, bright-eyed victims of a dark trade.

*not their real names

- Die Burger