The 2023 Global Organised Crime Index report has painted a grim picture of the state of South Africa, highlighting the country’s dark underbelly of human trafficking, its growing extortion and racketeering crime epidemic.
The report, launched on Tuesday reveals that South Africa is at the crossroads of being both a source and destination for human trafficking.
It encompasses exploitative practices, from sex trafficking to forced labour and organ smuggling.
Despite not being pervasive, the market is active, with criminal syndicates becoming increasingly organised, particularly along the southern migration route, the report notes.
Labour exploitation, especially in the agricultural sector, is emerging as a more significant threat than sex trafficking, with deceptive job opportunities being the prevalent method of luring unsuspecting victims.
The report says that the reluctance of authorities to investigate and the prevailing misconception that human trafficking is primarily sexual exploitation pose substantial challenges in combating this type crime.
In addition, the conflict between foreign and local workers further dissuades many victims from reporting exploitation.
The Shadow Market: Human Smuggling in South Africa
While human smuggling may have a lesser reach in South Africa compared to its African counterparts, it remains a focal point for corruption, primarily due to the illicit movement of foreign nationals.
Professional criminal networks, highly organised and cash-based, dominate this market, with Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Lesotho being the primary sources of smuggled individuals.
According to the report, which showed that South Africa scored a 7.18 criminality score (out of 10) - the seventh highest in the world (out of 193 countries) and the third highest in Africa - the government’s misidentification of human trafficking as human smuggling crimes obscures the true extent of these activities, leading to a dearth of specific information.
The southward route is favoured by individuals from the Horn of Africa due to the region’s oil and mineral-rich allure.
“The complicity of South African police and immigration authorities in the smuggling of undocumented foreign nationals across borders exacerbates the situation, with human smugglers capitalising on the vulnerability of victims during transit through violence and abduction,” the report said.
The US Department of State 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report for South Africa, said that local law enforcement agencies lacked sufficient resources and training to adequately and appropriately investigate all reported trafficking cases. “SAPS officers sometimes conflated GBV and human trafficking crimes,” the US State Department report noted.
“Observers reported law enforcement had insufficient training in trauma-informed interviewing and victim care, resulting in cases of DPCI investigators retraumatising victims or not taking victims’ statements.
“The lack of clarity on case status, low prospect of success, and sometimes years-long delays in cases dissuaded some victims from participating in trials. DPCI had a national anti-trafficking coordinator, four investigators to provide operational support, and provincial anti-trafficking coordinators in all nine districts; however, there were no officers or staff solely dedicated to anti-trafficking efforts,” the US Department of State 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report for South Africa stated.
IOL NEWS