Global Statistics
27 million people worldwide have become victims of human trafficking.
(Bales, 2004 and www.notforsalecampaign.org)
1 to 2 million people are trafficked every year.
(US. Dept of State and Unicef)
Most trafficking victims are girls between 5 to 15 years of age.
(Unicef)
½ of those children are African children.
(World Hope Int'l., 2008)
It is a business that has generated $33.9 billion (U.S.) or 339 billion Rand.
(Belser, 2006)
What is Human Trafficking?
The confidence of women or young girls is won over by young men or women who have been trafficked before and who are forced to entice others into the work.
The young man may pose as her boyfriend. A while later he will make her more dependant on him by isolating her, refusing her to have contact with her family or old friends. Her ID is removed and she may be locked indoors. She will not be allowed to go anywhere alone. He decides where she goes. He controls her life.
Consequently, he forces her to sell herself to clients or on the street. He takes all money she earns.
Should she refuse he may threaten her or her family, beat her or refuse her food.
He gives her drugs to enable her to sell herself. Should she refuse he keeps the drugs away from her until she gives in to his wishes.
A young woman interviewed in Ireland describes a process of being groomed and coerced into prostitution:
"I had left care at 16. By the time I was 18, I had been abused and beaten by men in relationships. When I met G he knew this. He showered me with attention and presents. After 3 months living together I found out he ran a brothel. He made me the receptionist but after a visit by the Gardai he closed down the brothel. He then said he had no money, that he had spent it all on me. He kept saying, "How were we going to live, to eat, to buy clothes?" He threatened me and forced me onto the streets. I hated it...the first night I shook all over. I brought home 200 to 300 pounds a night but I never saw any of it. Even when I was sick or terrified or had been raped he made me go back. I must have earned thousands over three years and I never saw a penny.... Sometimes I did not even have enough to eat." (O'Connor, Wilson, 2005)
How Human Trafficking works
Ensnaring
- Impressing the young woman
- Winning her trust and confidence
- Making her think he is the only one who truly understands her
- Ensuring she falls in love with him, giving her presents, usually including a ring
- Claiming the status of her boyfriend
Creating dependance
- Becoming more possessive
- Convincing her to destroy important objects and/or reject those she is close to
- Changing her name
- Destroying her connections to her previous life
- Isolating her
Taking control
- Deciding where she goes, who she sees, what she wears, eats and thinks
- Using threats, and if necessary violence
- Enforcing petty rules
- Being inconsistent and unreliable
- Demanding that she prove her love
Total dominance
- Creating a willing victim
- Ensuring she is compliant to his wishes
- Convincing her to have sex
- Convincing her to agree to be locked in the house
- Convincing her that he needs her to earn money, and that the best and easiest way is through selling sex
(Barnardos, 1998)
What does this say to South African girls?
In South Africa young girls are being trafficked from one province to the other to work in brothels. See this article.
Young people are offered work in offices or as receptionists. On arrival their ID is removed and they are forced to work as prostitutes.
Trafficking Statistics for South Africa
- The five-week schoolbreak during the 2010 Fifa World Cup could lead to hundreds of children being recruited into child prostitution rings and thousands more being trafficked.
(IOM's "Eye on Human Trafficking", 2007)
- Between 28,000 to 30,000 children are currently being prostituted in South Africa.
(Molo Songololo, 2000)
- Victims are often recruited from rural areas or informal settlements and transported to the urban centres of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and Durban.
(IOM Report on Internal Trafficking in South Africa, 2008)
- Boys under eighteen are increasingly lured into sexual exploitation and used for pornography.
(IOM, RITSA, 2008)
- West African Crime syndicates operate in Pretoria, Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg, and Bloemfontein, and traffick local black South African females into the sex trade.
(IOM, RITSA, 2008)
- The Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and Limpopo are the main "recruitment" areas for victims of Human Trafficking.
(IOM, US Aids Research report, Die Burger, 2008)
Human Trafficking and 2010
Human Trafficking and prostitution often go together. To recruit young and fresh prostitutes they are trafficked from other provinces and countries.
For 2010 Thai women have been trafficked into the country already.
The South African young people are under threat. They will be victims of ruthless pimps who promise gold but deliver death.
Is this the future they have been dreaming of?
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