"A trend started in the last two or three months, where you see more
and more women coming in with groups of children – the children are too
numerous and often too similar in age to be from one mother," he said.
The Zimbabwean migration, comprising asylum seekers fleeing political
persecution, economic migrants from a shattered economy, traders,
shoppers and unaccompanied minors, provides ample camouflage for human
traffickers.
The border between South Africa and Zimbabwe is a fertile ground for
criminal gangs. The "magumagumas" prey on migrants, robbing and raping
them as they make their way to South Africa, while the "malaicha"
arrange safe passage for migrants, but do not always keep to the
contract. Nde Ndifonka, the southern African spokesman for the
International Organization for Migration, told IRIN: "The conditions
are there. We believe there is a high incidence of human trafficking
happening there [the South Africa-Zimbabwe border]". Parents living in
South Africa often pay a malaicha to bring children across the border,
Sibanda said, and it was a "small step" to becoming a human trafficker.
Ndifonka said the malaicha were part of trafficking rings and targeted
"specifically, vulnerable young children, as there is a demand for
labour and sexual exploitation in South Africa".
In mid-April 2009, during a spot check, police found two unaccompanied
minors – boys aged about four and five – in a car en route to
Johannesburg. "The woman at first said they were her children, but when
I interviewed the children separately they said they did not know who
she was," Sibanda said. "The woman then maintained that she was their
mother’s sister, but the children did not know who she was, but were
told by her to call her ‘aunty’. The woman then said she was taking
them to meet their mother in Johannesburg, but the children said their
mother was living in Cape Town." The woman is expected to be charged
with kidnapping or a lesser charge of smuggling, as South Africa has
yet to adopt human trafficking legislation. An international children’s
agency, which declined to be identified, fearing it might attract human
traffickers to its offices, told IRIN it had begun trying to trace the
children’s relatives. The aid worker said people claiming to be the
relatives or friends of parents had tried to lure children away from
the shelter.
"Human trafficking is difficult to detect, as people are generally not
aware they are being trafficked. We know it [human trafficking] is
happening but cannot detect it," Jacob Matakanye, CEO of the Musina
Legal Advice Centre, told IRIN. "The only way to prevent trafficking is
to educate people about it in the country of origin … Zimbabwe is an
ideal opportunity for traffickers, as it is next to South Africa [the
continent’s richest country]," he said. The UN defines human
trafficking as "The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring
or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms
of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of
power or of a position of vulnerability, or of the giving of or
receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person
having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation."