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12 October 2020 | Story Nonsindiso Qwabe | Photo Anja Aucamp
Prof Beatri Kruger
Prof Beatri Kruger

How big is the human trafficking problem in South Africa? Whereas most crimes are generally reported to the police, trafficking is not, mainly because victims fear retaliation. Thus, exact statistics on human trafficking are not available anywhere in the world. But one thing is for sure; trafficking is an indisputable and systemic reality in South Africa. This is according to Prof Beatri Kruger, Research Fellow in the Centre for Human Rights at the University of the Free State.

Prof Kruger’s research on human trafficking spans a decade, and she said as human trafficking gets more public attention, more cases are coming to the fore.  “This is a good thing, because if you know the enemy and the modus operandi, you won’t be misled easily.”

Prof Kruger said for the past five years, South Africa has been classified as a country of origin, transit, and destination for trafficking by the annual US Trafficking in Persons Reports.

An increasing number of trafficking convictions

What this means is that victims are trafficked from South Africa to other countries; foreign victims are moved through the country to other areas for exploitation, while foreign victims are also brought from elsewhere in the world to the country as their final destination.

“The trafficking reality is not based on speculation. We have solid evidence that there is a very serious problem,” Prof Kruger said. According to police statistics, a significant number of 2 132 cases of human trafficking were reported to the SAPS under the current Trafficking Act from 2015 to 2017. Also, apart from five empirical doctorate studies, this reality is further confirmed by an increasing number of trafficking convictions in our courts.

Prof Kruger said these convictions provide significant insights into human trafficking in South Africa. Firstly, victims are seldom being kidnapped and taken by force. Instead, traffickers prefer to trick and trap victims by misleading them with false promises of a better life. Court cases exposed that many are misled by fabricated well-paid jobs or educational opportunities. The cases further reveal how traffickers submit their victims to various forms of exploitation. Aldina dos Santos [S v Dos Santos [2018 1 SACR 20 (GP)] was sentenced to life imprisonment for cunningly transporting Mozambican girls to her Gauteng residence, where they were forced to use drugs and perform sexual services to multiple paying clients. The court further imposed eight life sentences on Loyd Mabuza [S v Lloyd Mabuza 2018 2 SACR 54 (GP)] for holding four Mozambican girls between the ages of 10 and 16 captive as sex slaves for three years in the Sabi district. In S v Matini [case no. RC 123/2013 EC)], several South African victims, including mentally challenged girls, were sexually exploited in a brothel near Port Elizabeth. The two female traffickers in S v Seleso [case no. SS45/2018 (GJ)], who forced an orphaned girl into prolonged online sexual exploitation, were each sentenced to 19 life sentences. Convictions were also secured in other forms of exploitation, such as labour trafficking. In Mpumalanga, a boy of only six years old was forced into child labour. In the Pinetown area, children were provided at a price in illegal adoption scams: some children were sold for up to R15 000.  Babies were also commodified and traded – in KwaZulu-Natal, a mother even advertised her baby on Gumtree for R5 000. “In most cases, there were either multiple victims, multiple traffickers, or both, and multiple places of exploitation.”

Prof Kruger said there is still a need for more empirical research on the prevalence of all forms of human trafficking. She is currently involved in a comprehensive research project focusing on human trafficking in South Africa.

Assisting the public

Despite the challenges to combat trafficking, several milestones are also worth celebrating, she said. There is a toll-free 24/7 national human trafficking hotline available to assist the public, the National Freedom Network consists of vetted individuals and more than 70 organisations joining forces to combat trafficking, while important counter-trafficking information is available at www.nationalfreedomnetwork.co.za, and successful prosecutions are increasing, to name just a few.

Tips to keep you safe:

-Do not believe everything you read on social media. Evaluate and verify the source, time, and date before believing it or sending it on to others.
-Have a code that you share with your family and friends that you can use to alert them if you are in danger.
- Remember that there is safety in numbers. Do not walk or jog alone in secluded areas.
- If a trafficker attempts to grab you, make a scene so that other people can notice.
- Alert especially students to employment scams – verify job offers by calling the Trafficking Hotline.
- Report any suspicion of trafficking to the police, and also to the Trafficking Hotline.

If you need information or help, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline on +27 0800 222 777

News Archive

UFS Council unanimously approves two senior appointments
2014-11-24

The Council of the University of the Free State (UFS) unanimously approved the appointment of Dr Lis Lange as Vice-Rector: Academic and Prof Sechaba Mahlomaholo as Dean: Education during its meeting on Friday 21 November 2014.

Dr Lis Lange is currently Acting Vice-Rector: Academic at the University of the Free State, where she holds a substantive position as Senior Director heading the Directorate for Institutional Research and Academic Planning (DIRAP). Prof Mahlomaholo is Head of the School of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Technology Education at the UFS.

“These are two exceptional and trusted academics with international stature and I am delighted to welcome them as part of the senior leadership of the UFS. Dr Lange’s skills set pertaining to academic management and quality assurance make her one of only a few people with similar skills in the country, while Prof Mahlomaholo is a leading expert in community-based education,” says Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS.

Dr Lange joined the UFS in 2011. Before this, she was the Executive Director (2006-2010) of the Higher Education Quality Committee of the Council of Higher Education (CHE), and Acting CEO of the same organisation between August 2007 and April 2008. She has been involved in the development and implementation of science and technology and higher education policy in South Africa for a decade and a half, working in different capacities in the Human Sciences Research Council, the National Research Foundation and the Council on Higher Education. Dr Lange has served as a member of the board of the International Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE) and has participated in several international initiatives on quality assurance. She is the editor of an academic journal focused on the humanities, Acta Academica.

She has undertaken research and published in the fields of history, higher education and quality assurance. Her major concern in both research and practice is the role of higher education in the development of democratic societies, based on social justice. Dr Lange studied in Argentina, Mexico and South Africa, where she obtained a PhD in South African history from the University of the Witwatersrand.

Prof Mahlomaholo is a graduate of the Universities of the North, Western Cape and Harvard University in the United States. He is a National Research Foundation (NRF)-rated Professor of Education.

Before joining the UFS, he worked at six other universities where he was Deputy Dean in the Faculty of Education (UNIN-QwaQwa), Head of Professional Education (Vista University), Professor and Director of Research and Postgraduate Studies (MEDUNSA), Professor and Director of Curriculum Development (Central University of Technology), and Research Professor (North-West University).

His research interests lie in designing strategies mounted on Bricolage, Participatory Action Research and Critical Emancipatory Research as theoretical bases. He leads the NRF-sponsored project on the creation of Sustainable Learning Environments in schools. In this Participatory Action Research project, 28 PhD and 22 MEd students participate under the guidance of 15 academics. The project has relationships with the Global Network project (St Petersburg University), the Post-Colonial Education project (West Indies University) and the Discourse, Power, Resistance project (Plymouth University and now University of London). He has served as guest editor in the following ISI-indexed, peer-reviewed and accredited journals: the South African Journal of Higher Education (2010 and 2014), the South African Journal of Education (2011), Communitas (2012), the Journal of New Generation Sciences (2012), the Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa (2013) and the Journal of Education Studies (2013).

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