"SA becoming a ground for human trafficking"

Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development John Jeffrey says South Africa has become a source transit and destination country for human trafficking. 

Addressing delegates attending the UN-EU workshop on human trafficking in Pretoria, Jeffrey says the phenomenon is giving all affected countries sleepless nights and adds that South Africa is no exception in this regard.

The Deputy minister also spoke of the remarking on the achievement made by law enforcement agencies in combating human trafficking. He says according to the UN's findings of 2014, the country has become a fatted ground for human trafficking.

Jeffrey says this problem persists despite the existing legislation to combat the scourge, “The UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) report of 2014 report found that victims of 152 different citizenships were identified in 124 countries across the world. In a report at least about 500 flows were detected. And 49% of that was of adult women and 34% of that were children. Sub-Saharan Africa reported the highest child trafficking in the world and boys and girls are equally detected.” 

However, he says there's been significant achievement in prosecuting perpetrators of human trafficking. 

Stakeholders including the Department of Justice, Hawks, UNICEF, SA National Intersectoral Committee for Trafficking in Persons (NICTIP) are expected to use the two day dialogue to find ways to harmonize a co-ordinated response to human trafficking.  

UN's envoy Zhuldyz Akisheva has commended member states for having developed ways to help strengthen detection of human trafficking in their home grounds.  

”A total of 69 countries have reported to have detected victims from Sub-Saharan countries between 2012 and 2014. Victims from Sub-Saharan were mainly detected in Africa, Middle East and Western and Southern Europe. There are also rackets of trafficking flows from Africa to South East Asia and America,” says Akisheva. 

The workshop ends on Tuesday, with delegates expected to develop long and short term strategies to combat all forms of human trafficking as well as suggesting victim support programs globally.