Young South African girls are most vulnerable to human trafficking, according to a research report on the scope of human trafficking in South Africa by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

South Africa is a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking and accounts for the most victims and perpetrators.

Released this week, the report found from January 2018 to December 2021, that of the 754 adult victims from more than 30 countries, there were 445 South Africans. The highest number of children trafficked was also from South Africa, 59 out of 98.

“The collection of evidence from these sources indicates that human trafficking is indeed a serious, pervasive and systemic problem in South Africa that seamlessly intersperses with other crimes and social phenomena — including gender-based violence, prostitution, organised crime, missing persons, irregular migration, child abuse and labour disputes, to name a few,” says the report. 

Findings from the research confirm that sex trafficking continues to make up most of both reported cases and prosecutions of human trafficking, while labour trafficking prosecutions are severely lacking.

“Victims and perpetrators of human trafficking are significantly undercounted in both research and practice. Extreme violence is meted out by traffickers, while places where exploitation occurs are embedded in communities and operate for protracted periods without any meaningful law enforcement intervention.

“The prominence of consumer‐level demand for commercial sex was evident in potentially thousands of sex buyers who ‘used the services’ of adult and child victims of sex trafficking.

“Despite adequate laws to address this dimension of human trafficking in South Africa, sex buyers continue to exploit women and children with impunity. Several adult websites, some advertised on public roadways, are repeatedly implicated, yet none have been prosecuted,”

Despite significant challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the lack of an official centralised human trafficking database, and consistent challenges with engagement at some levels, the research was able to produce several important recommendations that the government should prioritise to address this growing crime.

The most trafficked gender is young females, followed by older females.

“South Africa is not nearly equipped or co-ordinated enough to deal with this crime as effectively as it should or could, and enabling factors such as corruption, complicity, and compromise of officials and other counter-human trafficking role players is a constant stark background to counter-human trafficking efforts.

“The prevalence of children being exploited in the sex trade; marriage, often under the guise of traditional cultural practice; labour and domestic servitude; and other forms of exploitation are not reflected in available numbers,” found the report.

Gauteng is the province that has many cases of human trafficking, followed by KwaZulu-Natal, the least being the Northern Cape.

About 400 victims of trafficking were identified in the 79 human trafficking prosecutions that were ongoing in courts during 2021. 

“A golden thread that weaves together the findings in this study is the vulnerability landscape of everyday South Africans, as well as international diasporas that visit or make South Africa their home. The findings that are discussed here affirm the consistency and coherency of historical and contemporary claims of human trafficking as deeply embedded in South African society.

“Vulnerability and South Africa’s many-hued violence manifestations are seamlessly woven into the country’s human trafficking profile,” says the report.

The report recommends that the government should:

• comply with requisite policy guidelines related to the functioning of provincial human trafficking task teams;
• take action against noncompliance; and
• listen to the stories of victims to map out the trends and areas of weakness. 

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