SA girls smuggled to East
2004-05-19 09:30
Cape Town - South African women have been smuggled to the Far East as sex slaves since 2000.
This is according to the latest newsletter of the Pretoria office of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which claims that women are smuggled to Macau, a former Portuguese colony and currently under the administrative control of China.
Young women with experience as strippers or sex workers are apparently lured to Macau with promises of money and luxury accommodation. The island is known as the Las Vegas of Asia, and is famous for its many nightclubs, casinos and bathhouses.
Advertisements are apparently placed in local newspapers and on websites of the South African sex industry.
The newsletter claims that local agents are people involved in the Johannesburg sex industry.
It says young women are given drugs to make it easier to convince them to fly to Hong Kong, after which they are taken to neighbouring Macau by boat.
Jonathan Martens, project manager at IOM, said he has known about this human trafficking for the past few years. He said IOM was not sure how many South African women were smuggled to the Far East every year.
In its latest newsletter, IOM published an interview with a 23-year-old Johannesburg woman who managed to escape from Macau.
The woman, known as Nicola, said she met nine other black, coloured and white South African women, aged between 18 and 21, on the island.
Some of these women have allegedly been held there for the past two years and are regularly sold to other bathhouses.
In reaction, the South African Police Service said it was investigating the revelations in the newsletter, but has not acquired any evidence or sworn statements to back up the claims.
National police spokesperson, Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht, said parents should personally check the credibility of travel agencies dealing with their children's travel arrangements.
Anyone with information on this human trafficking can contact the police's Crime Stop number on 08600 10111.
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