Boy, 3, saved from sex ring

2004-11-19 22:06

Johannesburg - A police raid a suspected child-sex operation in Benoni found a three-year-old boy being held hostage, and an under-age girl being pimped out for sex, police said on Friday.

Superintendent André Neethling of the Gauteng child protection unit said four more men had been arrested; one of them was caught having sex with a 15-year-old girl.

He said no one would say what the little boy was doing in the Benoni building, which police raided on Thursday night.

However, the mother of the child was traced to Nigel later that night.

She was picked up off the streets where she had been working as a prostitute.

Neethling said: "Her child had been taken by Nigerians about two months ago. They held the child there as some kind of collateral, to blackmail her to work for money."

Neethling said the 20-year-old woman saw none of the money she earned. She was given crack cocaine in the morning, and R25 a day.

Cops rescue 13 other girls

He said "We saw it as slavery happening right under our noses. She had been living on bread and mayonnaise for two months."

Thursday night's operation was part of a continued effort by police to clamp down on a child-sex ring, which they believe is operating throughout the country.

Neethling said: "In Nigel, we got the impression that these people were trying to expand their business towards Heidelberg to see if there was business there."

Thirteen other girls, aged between 13 and 16, have been rescued in the past month, and more than 60 people, mostly Nigerians, have been arrested.

Neethling told how the girls were often so tied up in their lives they did not want to leave.

The girl they found on Thursday had left home at the age of eight.

'Pimps control all the money'

"This is the only life she knows. She pleaded with us not to take her away."

He said HIV was obviously a risk, and all the rescued girls would be tested as a matter of course.

"Some of the girls we found were quite careful in terms of protecting themselves.

"Others didn't seem to care, really. Basically, they just work for their fix, in the form of cocaine rocks."

Neethling said the pimps controlled all the money.

Some children were returned to their parents, while others were taken to places of safety.

Most arrests have been in Rosettenville and Hillbrow in Johannesburg so far, although arrests in Durban at the weekend have been linked to the same sex ring.

- SAPA