Child traffic claims 'false'

2002-05-16 17:53

Cape Town - Reports that South Africa is emerging as a key role player in child trafficking are devoid of all truth, says Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula.

His statement contradicts claims by a Cape Town-based child rights organisation and a report of the South African Law Commission's Project Committee 110.

In a written reply to a question from Jabu Sosibo (African National Congress), he said child trafficking was not prevalent in South Africa.

"Neither can South Africa be described as a "key role player" in respect of this particular crime."

"If a person removes a child illegally from South Africa a person will usually be arrested for having committed the crime of `kidnapping' or `abduction'.

"If a child is `sold', the act usually falls within the ambit of legislation dealing with illegal adoptions," he said.

Parliament's joint monitoring committee on the improvement of quality of life and status of children last month heard submissions from a child rights organisation, Molo Songololo, on the sexual exploitation of local children.

Gangs and parents the main culprits

Molo Songololo spokesperson Debora Mobilyn told MPs the trafficking of South African children was "predominantly an in-country phenomenon".

Mobilyn said the main traffickers were the children's own parents and local gangs, who sometimes colluded.

"Girl children are the primary targets, although boy children have also been identified as victims."

The girls ranged in age from four to 17 years.

The reasons for an increase in the phenomenon locally "lie primarily in the economic situation in South Africa".

"Demand for sex with children is another primary cause."

Research for the report, which had started in Cape Town, had taken her organisation's investigators as far afield as Port Elizabeth, Durban, Johannesburg and Pretoria.

The trade in children was linked to the illegal trade in guns and drugs, and to prostitution.

Mobilyn said the aim of her briefing was to create awareness among government officials of the levels of sexual abuse of children in South Africa.

Being trafficked into slavery

Child trafficking was "one of the fastest-growing enterprises in the global economy".

"And South Africa is emerging as a key role player in the trafficking and sexual exploitation of children," she reportedly said.

Meanwhile, parliament's task group on the sexual abuse of children, in its draft report, noted the finding of the SALC's project committee that South African children were increasingly being trafficked by their own parents into slavery or prostitution in order to generate income or to pay off a debt.

"The task group expresses its deep concern about these forms of sexual abuse of children," states the draft, which will be finalised next week.

It urges the SALC to proceed as speedily as possible with drafting proposals for a new sexual offences act.

"The task group encourages the South African Law Commission to include in its draft of the new children's statute a general provision that criminalises the trafficking in children," says the draft report.

- SAPA