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19 March 2019 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa
Career Services
Front row from left to right: Magdalena Matthys (intern), Lavhelesani Mpofu (intern). Back row from left to right: Carmenita Redcliffe (Chief Officer: Company Relations), Nthabiseng Khota (intern), Belinda Janeke (Head of Career Services and Student Relations).

The Career Services office opened its facilities in 2007 as a help desk on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus at the Sasol Library, due to the increasing number of students looking for employment opportunities. The team has grown over the years and now consists of two chief officers, Belinda Janeke and Carmenita Redcliffe, two research assistants, 15 volunteers and seven career ambassadors.  The portfolio of company relations is the latest addition to the team that runs a number of new initiatives and events that aim to enhance overall marketing and services offered by the department.

In January this year, Career Services hosted a corporate breakfast in Johannesburg.  Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Francis Petersen, led a delegation consisting of Vice Rector: Institutional Change, Student Affairs, Prof Puleng LenkaBula, Dean of Student Affairs, Pura Mgolombane, Director of Institutional Advancement, and Director of Communication and Marketing, Annamia van den Heever, and Lacea Loader respectively . The event was an initiative that sought to motivating companies, donors and funders to employ and fund top UFS graduates.

According to Belinda Janeke, keeping UFS students informed about career opportunities and equipping them with the skills and grit to make them employable, finding employment or starting their own business is the department’s ultimate goal.



News Archive

Prof Beatri Kruger conducts research on modern-day slavery
2014-12-12

 

Representatives of the US Embassy in South Africa and other stakeholders gathered in Bloemfontein in November 2014.
From the left are: San Reddy and Chad Wessen from the US Embassy, Prof Beatri Kruger, and Palesa Mafisa, Chairperson of the Kovsie National Freedom Network.

Human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar ‘business’ with daunting challenges because of the uniqueness and complexities involved in the crime, says Prof Beatri Kruger, ex-prosecutor and lecturer in Criminal Law in the Faculty of Law.

Prof Kruger’s on-going research concentrates on whether South Africa’s legal efforts to combat human trafficking complies with international standards set out in the United Nations Trafficking Protocol of 2000 and other relevant international treaties.

Since the completion of her studies, the Prevention and Combatting of Trafficking in Persons Act of 2013 was passed in Parliament, but needs to be promulgated. This means South Africa is still a long way from complying with the UN protocol. A delegation of the US Embassy in South Africa recently visited the Faculty of Law on the Bloemfontein Campus. The purpose of their visit was to gain information for the US Department of State’s comprehensive 2015 report on trafficking in persons.

Prof Kruger’s current research focuses on the new legislation in collaboration with other national and international stakeholders. One of the focus areas is how traffickers control their victims. This research enhances the understanding of why victims often do not seek help, do not want to be ‘rescued’ and why they return to the very traffickers who have brutally exploited them.

The recently released Global Slavery Index 2014 estimates that 36 million people are living as slaves worldwide and that 106 000 of them are in South Africa. This report states that ‘modern slavery’ includes human trafficking, forced labour, forced marriage, debt bondage and the sale of children. The International Labour Organization estimates the illicit profits of forced labour to be US $150 billion a year.

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