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Mother who tried to sell baby online sentenced to house arrest

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A 20-year-old mother who tried to sell her baby online has been sentenced to house arrest for three years and a five-year suspended jail term.

Pietermaritzburg Regional Court magistrate Rose Mogwera on Wednesday further sentenced the woman to community service without remuneration.

The woman has to also attend life skills programmes and other courses determined by the Mental Health Society.

The young mother pleaded to contravening the contravening the Human Trafficking Act when she advertised the sale of her 19-month-old son on classifieds website Gumtree‚ and then proceeded to sell him for R5‚000 in a trap set up by police .

In her plea explanation last year‚ the woman said one of her two boyfriends accepted responsibility and began paying child support until DNA tests revealed he was not the father.

She claimed that he demanded a refund of R24‚000 that he had paid towards supporting the child therefore she put her child up for sale.

Mogwera said there were compelling and substantial circumstances that justified a lesser sentence than the prescribed R100-million fine or life imprisonment for human trafficking.

She said the woman’s crime “was not human trafficking in the strict sense of the word“.

 

TMG Digital/The Times

 

 

 

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