SOUTH AFRICA – Efforts to Strengthen Prosecution Efforts Against Human Traffickers

SOUTH AFRICA – Efforts to Strengthen Prosecution Efforts Against Human Traffickers – In a bid to better identify and assist victims of human trafficking and to improve the prosecution rates of traffickers in South Africa, IOM has begun a two-year long programme to train law enforcers, state officials and civil society actors.

South Africa, which is a major destination point for victims trafficked from Southern Africa and from other parts of the world including Asia, is witness to a diverse range of trafficking trends. Between August 2002-2003 alone, IOM identified 10 trafficking patterns to, through and from South Africa, including the trafficking of people from Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Thailand, China, Eastern Europe and several African refugee-producing countries.

Traffickers in their turn vary from transnational organized crime groups to small-scale local syndicates that recruit acquaintances, friends, and family members from across the region.

This programme is expected to facilitate the prosecution of human traffickers and the assistance of victims by building the capacity of South African law enforcement officials and social service providers to draw the links between the elements of human trafficking and to take appropriate and effective steps to counter the trade in persons in their respective fields of operation.  

Funded by European Commission (EC) and the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the new programme is part of a broader EC umbrella project that includes improving awareness and knowledge of the crime as well as work on preventing it.

More than 2,500 South African policemen, immigration officials, prosecutors, social workers, health professionals and civil society workers will be trained during the two years on the full spectrum of counter trafficking responses recommended by the Palermo Protocol.

Five counter-trafficking learning modules will also be integrated into the basic and in-service training programmes of South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs, the Department of Social Development, the Department of Health, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development as well as the South African Police Service. Each of the five ministries and services will then take ownership of the activities and curricular modules designed, tested and launched by IOM.

South Africa is then expected to come up a comprehensive national curriculum on countering human trafficking which will be used to train its own officials on comprehensive responses to the crime.

Since 2003, IOM’s Southern African Counter-Trafficking Assistance Programme (SACTAP), has responded to human trafficking in the Southern Africa through four key interventions, namely research, information dissemination, capacity building of law enforcement and social assistance providers, and direct assistance to victims.

In South Africa, IOM’s victim assistance programme has assisted more than 180 trafficked people through measures such as medical support, psycho-social counselling, assisted voluntary return to their home countries, and reintegration support once they arrive.