- South Africa is a destination for trafficked people, a place people come from who are trafficked and a place through which they are transported from.
- According to the latest Trafficking in Persons annual report released by the United States Government, the government identified and referred 74 trafficking victims to care in South Africa.
- A new trend is where victims get invited to a job but are forced to do online scamming.
- Others get lured by fake modelling or sports contracts. Some are told they’ll be going on a holiday.
Human trafficking has been on the rise – and the northern suburbs of Cape Town are no exception, a local organisation says.
“Many suburbs in Cape Town, sadly, have this problem,” Salome Geiger, co-founder of the Cape Town-based Free to Fly, says.
There are so many victims, Free to Fly is hoping to open one of the first places of safety aimed solely at child survivors in South Africa.
“It’s definitely getting worse,” Geiger says. “People are becoming more desperate.”
South Africa is a destination for trafficked people, a place people come from who are trafficked and a place through which they are transported from.
According to the latest Trafficking in Persons annual report released by the United States Government, the government identified and referred 74 trafficking victims to care in South Africa. This includes 42 labour trafficking victims, 23 sex trafficking victims, and nine victims of unspecified forms of trafficking, compared with identifying 83 victims and referring 74 victims to care in the previous reporting period. Of the sex and labour trafficking victims identified, there were 31 women, 25 men, 14 children, and nine were unspecified; 43 were foreign victims.
Experts, however, say this number is much higher. Prof Philip Frankel, author of the book Human Trafficking in South Africa, released in June, estimates there are a possibly 250 000 victims in South Africa alone.
Unaware
At Free to Fly they feel it’s important to note there are different signs and ways of human trafficking. Often, victims don’t realise they’re being trafficked.
A new trend is where victims get invited to a job but are forced to do online scamming. Others get lured by fake modelling or sports contracts. Some are told they’ll be going on a holiday.
Before they’re even aware of what’s going on, they’re stuck without money and fed a steady diet of drugs and physical abuse.
Often, victims come from other countries and cannot understand any language in South Africa – trapping them further.
They may need to pay for their own stay, often with money made from prostitution.
“Nobody says they want to be a prostitute one day,” Geiger says. Many sex workers will joke about this at first.
At Free to Fly they’ve seen it and heard it all. Like family members selling their children and people using babies as props to beg for more money at traffic lights. “How do you know it’s her child?” Geiger asks.
At Free to Fly their aim is to fight against human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Apart from the planned place of safety, they hold awareness talks at schools and other places and also supply government with information gathered on potential victims.
They also host a monthly podcast where they tackle different angles of human trafficking. Here they interview survivors, pimps, and everything in between.
Warning signs
Geiger says there are numerous warning signs to look out for. Often, victims are abused and neglected. Their documents (like passports and identity documents) are controlled by someone else, or they get branded like cattle to show they “belong” to someone. They’re often unpaid or underpaid.
The Free to Fly, along with the organisation The Deep River, will be in the area on Friday where they will be doing a special screening of the movie Priceless.
The movie is a 2016 American Christian romantic drama that tells the story of James (Joel Smallbone), who embarks on a cross-country delivery job with one condition – no questions asked.
He finds out the delivery involves two young women, a discovery that transforms him.
Through the movie, the viewer is confronted with some of the realities of human trafficking, a topic made even more relevant with the recent release of Hollywood movie Sound of Freedom, starring Jim Caviezel.
Geiger says both movies are good if you understand that they show a small part of the bigger industry plaguing the world.
“It doesn’t explain everything, but it explains one of the factors,” she says.
She’s very grateful movies like these are raising awareness and getting people talking about human trafficking.
Free to Fly will be showing the movie Priceless on 13 October at 19:00 at the Journey of Grace Church, Bellville. Tickets are available at Quicket.
