He blamed it on West Africans in South Africa‚ saying they “go to our rural areas of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal‚ take away our South African nationals‚ bring them over to Gauteng and push them to private residences. They are exploiting them on a sexual level; they are selling them as prostitutes.”
Kirsten Hornby‚ the global advocacy director of the NGO Love Justice International‚ said what made trafficking so prevalent in South Africa was that the country had high levels of inequality and unemployment.
“We see domestic trafficking happening with a lot of our vulnerable unemployed youth being willing to go to economic hubs in search for jobs‚” Hornby further added that among the vulnerable to trafficking were migrants who had come to South Africa in search of work.
She said Love Justice International‚ which works in four ports of entry in South Africa‚ had intercepted 378 potential victims of trafficking since it started operating in the country in 2016.
“That is equivalent to an average of around 20 victims a month that we have been able to see‚” Hornby said.