Border cops in on trafficking?
2009-09-21 18:03
Komatipoort - Police at the Lebombo border post, one of South Africa's busiest borders, have been accused of being accessories to child trafficking.
Vusi Ndukuya, an anti-child trafficking activist and member of the anti-child trafficking body MPULIMO, said he has interviewed over 30 children who were smuggled across the border from Mozambique into South Africa since 2006, many of whom indicated that police accepted bribes to look the other way.
"I don't trust the border police. In most of our cases we have found that police were either aware or were involved in helping traffickers smuggle children into the country," he said on Friday.
'Soldiers must return'
Ndukuya said there were fewer incidents of child trafficking when the army patrolled the border.
"The soldiers should return and patrol the borders because the police can no longer be trusted," said Ndukuya.
One 10-year-old victim of child trafficking, who cannot be named to protect her identity, was rescued last week.
She told African Eye she was lured from her home in Machava village near Maputo city in Mozambique when a neighbour lied to her parents about taking her to school in South Africa.
She got as far as Orlando informal settlement near Komatipoort.
"When I got to Orlando squatter camp, (my neighbour) told me that I came here to become a nanny and not start Grade 1 as she told my parents," said the child.
She said that when she entered South Africa, the woman left her on the roadside and approached a policeman at the border post and exchanged money.
She and the woman then crossed the border and took a taxi to the informal settlement.
Saps denies claims
Ndukuya said other children revealed that police who stopped and searched them would demand bribes if they didn't have passports or ID books.
On Friday, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa's spokesperson, Hangwani Mulaudzi, denied police were aiding child trafficking and insisted that policing at the Lebombo border post is good.
"We have various departments that are part of a border control operational coordinating committee and we have senior managers that control and assess the border, he said.