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SA: Gateway for human trafficking
01/08/2002 08:46 - (SA)
Barnie Louw, Die Burger
Cape Town - South Africa has become an important gateway for crime syndicates smuggling people across borders, Interpol warned.
The fast-growing international industry is controlled by highly organised crime syndicates who smuggle an estimated 700 000 people a year to wealthy countries, where they often work as slaves for years.
Interpol maintains South Africa, with its inadequate legislation, is increasingly being used by these syndicates not only as a thoroughfare for smuggling activities, but also a destination for especially Asians.
It is not known how many people annually enter and leave the country in this manner.
Interpol says scores of Chinese annually travel to South Africa on false passports. Alternatively they travel to neighbouring countries, such as Swaziland, Lesotho and Mozambique, from where they illegally slip into South Africa.
The recently released US foreign ministry's annual human rights report says the lucrative trade in human beings - in some instances bordering on a modern form of slavery - has an annual turnover of $10 billion (about R100 billion) and is set to soon overtake drug smuggling in terms of financial gain.
Not illegal in SA
South African police say traffic in human beings is not illegal in South Africa. "We do, however, probe cases from time to time under common law dealing with kidnapping and abduction," Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said on Wednesday.
The US report points out that South Africa probes few cases of traffic in human beings and the country has no programme in place to assist these migrants. Witness protection is only available for the country's own citizens, and most illegal immigrants are deported summarily, preventing them form testifying in court. Neither has the government initiated awareness campaigns.
Apart from being a favoured destination for Asians, South Africa also receives its share of women, aged 18 to 25 and destined for the sex industry, from African, Eastern European and former Soviet Union countries.
Interpol says trafficking in humans has become the preferred industry for several crime networks worldwide, who are becoming more sophisticated and are smuggling people at ever-increasing profits.
Coerced
Once the illegal immigrants arrive in the country of their preference, they are at the mercy of the smugglers, who often force them to work for years to pay off their "travel expenses".
If an immigrant fails to settle her debt in time, the syndicate coerces her family at home by threatening to kill her.
Interpol says smuggling syndicates benefit from the huge profits and the toothless legislation in many countries. There is little risk of being caught and a slim chance of prosecution, compared to other international crimes such as drug trafficking.
The US report says at least 700 000 - possibly as many as four million - men, women and children are "bought, sold and transported and detained against their will under conditions similar to slavery".
"In the modern version of slavery, known as human trafficking, smugglers use threats, intimidation and violence to force victims into sexual activities or to work for the smugglers' financial gain," the report says.
"Some victims responded to advertisements in the belief that they would secure a good job in a new country. Others were sold by family members, friends or a family friend into the modern equivalent of slavery."
- Die Burger
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