J Swanson-Jacobs: National Conference on Human Trafficking

26 March 2009

Programme director
Management and staff members of Masimanyane Women’s Support Centre
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

Good evening to you all. It is both a pleasure and a great honour for me to
join you here today to address this important gathering on a topic of profound
global concern. The Department of Social Development greatly appreciates this
opportunity to address this conference. I wish to applaud the Masimanyane
Women’s Support Centre and the provincial Department of Social Development for
organising this important event.

As I speak the national conference to develop an integrated human
trafficking national action plan is currently taking place in Durban. I hope
that the deliberations of this conference will feed into the integrated
national action plan to enable us to have well coordinated and concerted
efforts to this phenomenon. In exactly 443 days from today, our country will
host the FIFA World Cup 2010, the biggest football event for us and the
continent as a whole. Human trafficking is a global problem and no country,
developed or developing, is immune to this growing problem. For all these
reasons, today's conference comes at a most opportune time.

Coincidentally, this conference comes only five days after the Human Rights
Day. It is therefore not only right to be discussing this issue here but
befitting because human trafficking is a violation of the universal principles
of human rights. It has become a lucrative criminal enterprise netting an
estimated 36 billion US dollars a year. Our gathering here today is recognition
that human trafficking is not only a global phenomenon, but a growing problem
which we can only tackle effectively if we work together.

As we all know, the already marginalised status of women and children,
particularly the girl-child in many societies puts them at greater risk to
become affected by poverty and hardship, which in turn puts them at higher risk
of being targeted by traffickers, who use false promises of jobs and
educational opportunities to recruit their victims. For us a country and a
nation, the discussion of this subject brings back painful memories of the
painful suffering of the late Saartjie Baartman who was lured to the brighter
lights in Britain under false promises of fame, fortune, and freedom in a far
away land. Regrettably, more than 160 years after, human trafficking still
remains a sad reality of the modern world. Of particular concern is the fact
that women and children constitute a large number of victims of human
trafficking.

Research evidence illustrate that as early as 2003 South Africa was is a key
destination as well as a country of origin and transit point for individuals
trafficked to and from Africa and Europe as well as globally. What we do not
have, with any measure of accuracy is the full extent of the problem. A 2003
report by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) on the trafficking
of women and children for purposes of sexual exploitation in South and Southern
Africa estimated that at least 1000 women are trafficked into South Africa from
Mozambique (IOM Paper, ‘Seduction, Sale and Slavery: Trafficking of Women and
Children for Sexual Exploitation in Southern Africa.’3rd Edition, 2003).

The report also found that South Africa was a transit point for women and
children trafficked from the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
region. However the report was unable to provide reliable estimates on the
numbers of women, men and children trafficked into and out of South Africa and
the surrounding countries. The report noted that the working conditions of
women trafficked into the industry are extremely exploitative and include debt
bondage, long working hours, a limited right to refuse clients, and removal of
their freedom of movement these are violations of fundamental human rights.

Increasingly there is recognition that human trafficking does not only
involve trafficking across borders but also occurs within a country borders as
well. Girls and women from the rural and disadvantaged parts of the country are
trafficked to urban areas for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation
and domestic servitude. Anecdotal evidence suggests while the majority of
victims of human trafficking are women and children, a significant number of
young boys are trafficked internally for use in street vending, food service,
and agriculture, thus resulting in child labour.

More recently the United Nations global report on trafficking in persons
(2009) reports some interesting trends with regard to human trafficking in our
country. Sexual exploitation is by far the most common reason for human
trafficking with 79 percent of victims. Forced labour accounts for 18 percent
of the victims of human trafficking. South Africa reflects similar trends with
60 percent of victims of human trafficking sheltered by the International
Organisation for Migration coming from Thailand. Another trend is that women
form a disproportionate number of people involved in trafficking, both as
victims and increasingly as perpetrators.

Human trafficking is a result of a complex set of interrelated push and pull
factors. On the ‘push’ side most studies focus on such factors as poverty, a
lack of opportunities, dislocation, gender, racial and ethnic inequalities, and
the break-up of families. ‘Pull’ factors include the promise of a better life,
consumer aspirations, and lack of information on the risks involved,
established patterns of migration, porous borders and fewer constraints on
travel.

Tackling human trafficking and exploitative labour practices is a priority
for our government. South Africa is a signatory of the United Nations protocol
on trafficking in persons. For us in South Africa, signing and ratifying the
protocol was a natural extension of our commitment to human rights as enshrined
in our Constitution. The fact that South Africa is seen as a source, transit
and destination country for trafficking in persons is a threat to our fledging
democracy. Accordingly, government has moved decisively and swiftly to tackle
this challenges head on through the introduction of progressive legislation.
Key among these is the Children’s Act as well as the soon to be enacted
Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Bill. The Bill outlines the
roles and responsibilities of the Department of Social Development as the
following:

* Accreditation of organisation to provide services
* Development of minimum norms and standards
* Programme offered by accredited organisation
* Assess programmes offered by accredited organisation
* Plan to address the needs of victim of trafficking.
* Information management
* Deportation of victim of trafficking prohibited
* Repatriation of victim of trafficking from republic
* Assistance to foreign victim of trafficking
* Repatriation of victim of trafficking to Republic
* Escorting of child victim of trafficking.

The Bill makes provision for social service professionals to play a role in
the reporting, identification and assessment of a person who is a victim of
trafficking. Once this is confirmed the victim is entitled to be placed under
an approved programme, child victims are to be placed in temporary safe care.
Such programmes must offer accommodation, counselling and rehabilitation
services as well as aim to reintegrate the victim back into their families and
communities. The programme may also offer education and skills development
training for adults. The Department of Social Development has developed a set
of guidelines to ensure that minimum norms and standards are in place when
dealing with child and adult victims of trafficking. This will ensure that we
are able to treat victims of trafficking with the dignity espoused in our
Constitution. As a matter of urgency, we need to act collectively to:

* collect data to accurately assess the extent of the problem to inform our
policy responses
* provide appropriate support to victims
* prosecute and confiscate the traffickers’ proceeds of this crime through
rigorous law enforcement
* work together in a coordinated manner across the country with our regional
neighbours and through partnerships at international level
* address conditions and factors that fuel human trafficking such gender
violence, poverty, economic stability and fair labour practices.

More importantly, we need to put in place preventive measures through an
integrated and multi sectoral approach that addresses migration and trafficking
within the context of overall national and development policy. One of the
decisive steps we have already taken to ensure the protection victims is to set
up the victim empowerment programme a programme set up to provide support to
victims of crime and violence, including victims of human trafficking. Of
course as government we are also alive to the reality that that currently we do
not have, yet, adequate resources and services in place to effectively and
fully implement the programme to support all these categories of victims.

I hope that your deliberations will consider how best we can work together
to roll out these services throughout the country. Government alone cannot
single handily address all these challenges without the support of
organisations such as Masimanyane Women’s Support Centre. In this regard, the
Department of Social Development is working with the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the European Commission to strengthen the victim
empowerment programme through the establishment of one stop centres and
shelters to counteract all forms of violence and crime against women and
children.

Let me conclude by quoting Ms Ndioro Ndiaye, the Deputy Director-General of
the International Organisation for Migration who stated that, “The fight
against trafficking in persons is far from over. We have already done a great
deal of good work together, but if we are ever to be able to eliminate
trafficking in persons, we will have to free victims from the fear of telling
their stories. The only way we will be able to free victims from fear is to
ensure that they are protected. And the only way we will be able to ensure they
are protected is to begin addressing the broader issues of exploitation that we
find in all of our societies.”

Thank you.

Issued by: Department of Social Development
26 March 2009