The studio talk took place on the Business Class show and the presenter Lihle Mthethwa the interviewed the paralegal to expand on the matter.
There have been a number of missing people in the area and this has to do with many reasons including Human Trafficking. Human trafficking includes young girls of the ages 10, 11, 12, 13 being taken and later on it appears that they have been forced to marry an old man. Families of these young girls do nothing about this again as long as they get some cows, sheep, goats and money. These cases end up not being reported. This dents the girl’s future as she cannot continue going to school. She will do heavy tasks at the family such as cooking, doing laundry at the river, chop wood from the forest to mention a few. This is a violation of a young girl’s right as she is denied access to education and her right to be a child.
Factretriever.com lists the following Little Known Facts about Human Trafficking.
- Family members will often sell children and other family members into slavery; the younger the victim, the more money the trafficker receives. For example, a 10-year-old named Gita was sold into a brothel by her aunt. The now 22-year-old recalls that when she refused to work, the older girls held her down and stuck a piece of cloth in her mouth so no one would hear her scream as she was raped by a customer. She would later contract HIV
- Human trafficking and smuggling are similar but not interchangeable. Smuggling is transportation based. Trafficking is exploitation based.
- Researchers note that sex trafficking plays a major role in the spread of HIV.
- There are more human slaves in the world today than ever before in history.
- Human traffickers often use a Sudanese phrase “use a slave to catch slaves,” meaning traffickers send “broken-in girls” to recruit younger girls into the sex trade. Sex traffickers often train girls themselves, raping them and teaching them sex acts.
- Human trafficking not only involves sex and labour, but people are also trafficked for organ harvesting.
- Although human trafficking is often a hidden crime and accurate statistics are difficult to obtain, researchers estimate that a large number of trafficking victims are female and children.
- Sex traffickers often recruit children because not only are children more unsuspecting and vulnerable than adults, but there is also a high market demand for young victims. Traffickers target victims on the telephone, on the Internet, through friends, at the mall, and in after-school programs
- Sex traffickers use a variety of ways to “condition” their victims, including subjecting them to starvation, rape, gang rape, physical abuse, beating, confinement, threats of violence toward the victim and victim’s family, forced drug use, and shame.
- Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing criminal enterprises because it holds relatively low risk with high-profit potential. Criminal organisations are increasingly attracted to human trafficking because, unlike drugs, humans can be sold repeatedly.
- Victims of human trafficking suffer devastating physical and psychological harm.
- Human traffickers often work with corrupt government officials to obtain travel documents and seize passports.
- Human traffickers are increasingly trafficking pregnant women for their new-borns. Babies are sold on the black market, where the profit is divided between the traffickers, doctors, lawyers, border officials, and others. The mother is usually paid less than what is promised her, citing the cost of travel and creating false documents.
- The AIDS epidemic in Africa has left many children orphaned, making them especially vulnerable to human trafficking.
Please tune into Inanda FM 88.4 or visit www.inandafm.co.za