SA is also haunted by human trafficking and child prostitution

A bruised body, a broken spirit and a fear stricken Mandy (not her real name) tearfully stands at the corner of a not so busy street in Hatfield, Tshwane. 

This is where she stands everyday for the next client to pick her up. Her demeanor prompts me to walk towards her. She responds to my greeting with a broken voice. I offer her an embrace but she rejects it not because she doesn’t need it, but because she’s in excruciating pain. 

I get closer and manage to carefully embrace her as tears copiously roll down her cheeks. She eventually calms down and I manage to speak to her. “He beat you up”, I remark. She responds in the positive with a nod.

Mandy’s experience is not unique; many girls who are used as sex slaves go through this daily. They are beaten and ill-treated by their pimps who see them as commercial objects. Their status as human beings created in the image of God has been reduced to that of a hard working animal like an  ox or a donkey which works tirelessly under the heavy hand of its master.         

Human trafficking is rife in SA than we think. Girls are trafficked from different provinces to different destinations as sex slaves. Most of these girls come from KwaZulu Natal. Human trafficking is as much a national phenomenon as it is an international phenomenon. Girls get into prostitution through this practice and are trapped for life. Girls as young as fourteen parade the streets of our towns in pursuit of potential sex buyers.  

Quite often we pass these girls because we think they freely made the choice to be prostitutes. We never bother to ask what brought them to the streets. We conveniently choose to look the other way. Society is often judgmental and immediately creates the ‘us and them’ divide in their minds. A scenario that completely seperates us from those who need our help. There is however more to it than meets the eye. Mandy typifies the vulnerable and troubled girls who roam the streets in our different localities. 

On the surface these girls look free but they are not. They live their lives in fear every day. These girls have unwillingly and unawares relinquished their freedom to the pimps. This effectively renders them as slaves. They are worse than shackled slaves because theirs is disguised and hidden. The girls are literally at the mercy of these pimps who are a law unto themselves.   

Whilst the girls may sicken some of the passers-by and onlookers in the streets, what is more nauseating is the innocent look on these pimps’ faces. They stand there and roam our streets without any shame and guilt. Yet they are the worst perpetrators of human abuses and crime against humanity. (I have deliberately withheld the nationality of the pimps in the piece to avoid it to be reduced to a xenophobic backlash against some nationalities). This is what makes it difficult for police to nail them. They linger around like innocent school boys during recession whilst they keep a close eye to their victims. Like hawks they hover over the girls from high rise buildings in the city.

Human trafficking is modern day slavery and the pimps are the modern slave drivers. The pimps make a lot of money through these girls. Money which is earned by someone who not only sells their body mostly to a complete stranger but who sells her soul too. The girls are given targets to meet per week and if they fail to meet these targets they are often subjected to beatings and other forms of abuses. The pimps thrive through this illegal and barbaric trade because it is difficult to catch them and to prove their criminal behavior. They are not just heartless and unsympathetic, they are arrogant too.  However this should not undermine the brutality of this crime. Mandy’s case should galvanize and prompt us to act against this crime against humanity.  

The pimps also supply drugs to the girls which further entraps them and indebts them to the pimps. They pay their debt with money generated from prostitution. It is an incessant cycle that is difficult to break.    

Asked why they don’t escape they cite fear and other social issues such as dysfunctional families, abusive parents and/or partners, poverty and unemployment. Some view their current abuse as much better than the one they left behind.   They argue that prostitution is a way of survival for them. But two wrongs don’t make a right do they? This however underscores the underlying problems we face as a country. These include South Africa’s porous borders, unemployment, immorality, the effects caused by the scourge of AIDS, drug abuse and so forth.  

The girls are lured from their homes with promises of jobs in Gauteng mainly where they think prospects are much better than where they come from.  But not all of them come from dysfunctional families however. Some were duped into the trade unknowingly and others willingly got into the trade and find it hard to get out despite how much they wish to.

Prostitution is illegal in this country yet it is ironically a fast growing trade including the easy access of drugs that pervade our societies in South Africa.    

Girls are endangered species today.

It is a known fact that most of these girls are positive because they are pressured to have sex without condoms to meet their income targets. Sex without condom earns them more money than they would without it, they say.  

What is scary about human trafficking though is that it could be anybody’s child. It could be the girl from next door. It could be your daughter, your granddaughter, your cousin or niece. That is why it is folly to look the other way.  Our indifference towards this crime makes us accomplices to this crime against humanity. Edmund Burke, an Irish philosopher once said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph in the world is for enough good men and women to do nothing”.  

It is therefore our collective responsibility as a nation to stand up against human trafficking, prostitution and drug abuse. Whilst the government cannot do it alone, it must however realize that it must take the lead to uproot this. It should start within its ranks by disciplining those who are found guilty of these crimes. It should nail those police officials who thrive through proceeds generated from these crimes by soliciting bribes and by abusing these young girls themselves.

The church should step in too and lead people to Christ. It is true that old habits die hard. It is also true that it is only through Christ that true transformation of a person’s behavior and true liberation of the soul can be completely attained.