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Woman escapes sex slavery after defying Cape Town 'traffickers'

Image: 123RF/Yupa Watchanakit

A Zimbabwean woman escaped a life of sex slavery after "refusing to be submissive" to two men who allegedly trafficked her from Johannesburg to Cape Town.

The Hawks' anti-human trafficking team and the City of Cape Town's law enforcement vice squad arrested Lebogang Molapo‚ 33‚ and Ndubuisi Andy Okafor‚ 34‚ in a raid on a house in Milnerton last week.

A 35-year-old woman reported them to the police after she was kicked out of the house because she refused to submit to her alleged traffickers despite being assaulted and threatened.

"Molapo allegedly recruited and transported the 35-year-old victim from Johannesburg to Cape Town on March 5 2019‚" said Hawks spokesperson Cpt Philani Nkwalase in a press statement on Wednesday.

"The Zimbabwean-born woman‚ who left her country of birth to find work‚ was enticed to travel by bus with her recruiter as she could not immediately find a job in Johannesburg."

When she arrived in Cape Town she was taken to a house in Farnworth Street‚ Rugby‚ where she was locked up during the day and "coerced into a life of prostitution and drugs by night".

The duo appeared in the Cape Town magistrate's court on Monday on a charge of human trafficking and their case was postponed to April 8 for a bail application.

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