Research results have confirmed that sex trafficking continues to account for many reported cases and prosecutions in South Africa, while prosecutions for human trafficking for labor are also very low. What is more concerning is that the new study concludes that victims and perpetrators of human trafficking are significantly underrepresented in research and practice. This is the background of SA being on the Tier 2 Watch List of the United States Department of State (US) for human trafficking, because the country does not meet the minimum standards to eliminate the practice, although it makes significant …
Research results have confirmed that sex trafficking continues to account for many reported cases and prosecutions in South Africa, while prosecutions for human trafficking for labor are also very low.
What is more concerning is that the new study concludes that victims and perpetrators of human trafficking are significantly underrepresented in research and practice.
This is the background of SA being on the United States (US) Department of State’s Tier 2 Watch List for human trafficking, as the country does not meet the minimum standards to eliminate the practice, despite its significant efforts. become.
Extreme violence
According to Dr. Marcel Van der Watt, one of the researchers in the study, extreme violence is carried out by the traffickers of the victims, while places where exploitation is embedded in the community and operate for a long time without meaningful law enforcement intervention.
He said that civil society reports and evidence in some successful prosecutions confirmed the indifference, corruption, and complicity of law enforcement officials.
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Van der Watt said that consumer-level demand for commercial sex is evident in the thousands of sex buyers who use the services of adult and child sex-trafficking victims.
“Even if the law is adequate to deal with this dimension [human trafficking] in South Africa, sex buyers continue to exploit women and children with impunity. Several adult websites, some of which are advertised on public streets, have repeatedly been involved in ongoing and successful sex trafficking prosecutions, but no one has been prosecuted,” he said.
Van der Watt said that victims and perpetrators of human trafficking are citizens of several countries.
A stumbling block
He said that the failure to use the legal definition of the Act to Prevent and Combat Trafficking in Persons (PACOTIP) in some research studies contributed to the decrease in the number of victims of human trafficking.
Van der Watt said that although there is no official centralized human trafficking database, the research can produce recommendations that governments should prioritize to tackle the growing crime.
The recommendations include the creation of an integrated information system to provide evidence on the prevalence of human trafficking, facilitating effective monitoring and implementation of the PACOTIP Act.
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“This is specifically for the use of section 7 of the Act and sections 11 and 17 of the Penal Code [Sexual Offences and Related Matters] Amendment of Act 32 of 2007 is a legislative intervention to prevent demand that gives rise to trafficking for sexual exploitation,” he said.
The immediate intervention, he said, is the facilitation of effective monitoring and implementation of the PACOTIP Act, using Section 7 of the PACOTIP Act and Sections 11 and 17 of the Criminal Law. [Sexual Offences and Related Matters] Amendment of Act 32 of 2007 is a legislative intervention to prevent requests that encourage trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Also key in the recommendation is the full implementation and compliance with the SA Police Service National Instruction 4 of 2015 related to detectives in police stations, data integrity, and arresting human trafficking and related issues in the SAPS crime administration system.
Van der Watt said there is also an immediate need to create a dedicated capacity for proactive, intelligence-led and court-driven investigations alongside financial investigations, asset forfeiture, and counter-corruption strategies.
He said it is important to prioritize the legal definitions of human trafficking and ‘vulnerability abuse’ as defined in the PACOTIP Act in research and policy discussions on prostitution and pornography, gender-based violence, child abuse, labor violations and irregular migration. .
“Everyone should be free. However, through force, fraud, and coercion, human traffickers violate this most basic of rights. The exploitative practices of traffickers affect every country in the world, including the United States, by undermining and destroying communities, security, and the global economy,” said Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State.
He preaches unity for the responsibility of the leaders who allow and support human trafficking, create conditions ready for mass exploitation and perpetuate this basic insult to human dignity.
“Those who commit, condone, or support these crimes must be held accountable,” Blinken said.
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