Child-sex ring smashed - 59 held
2004-11-18 20:16
Johannesburg - Police smashed a child-prostitution syndicate and rescued 13 girls, some as young as 10 years old, in Johannesburg and Durban on Thursday, SABC radio news reported.
Police said this was just the tip of the iceberg, and girls between the ages of 10 and 15 were across the country being kept locked up, and forced to have sex for money.
On Thursday, after a month of investigation, police swooped on the sex-syndicate and arrested 59 Nigerians. As yet, none of the clients have been arrested as yet.
The girls were either sold to the syndicate by their parents, had run away from home, or were kidnapped, police said.
They were given heroine, leading to addiction that made them dependant on their captors.
Police believed many more girls were still in the clutches of the criminals.
The girls were being moved between Johannesburg, Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Durban, making it difficult to track and rescue them, police said.
A special police unit started investigating the sex ring about a month ago, after receiving a tip-off from one of the girls' sisters.
She believed her sister was being kept in a building in Durban. Police swooped on the place and found the girl, the SABC reported.
- SAPA