South Africa: Human Trafficking and the 2010 FIFA World Cup
| May 4, 2010 | Posted by Lotte under Uncategorized |
With the World Cup coming closer there’s massive preparations going on in South Africa. Stadiums are about to be finished and the infrastructure is being upgraded all over the country. One of the largest infrastructure projects is the subway being build in Johannesburg. This is the first subway system in Africa and will connect Johannesburg, Pretoria, and OR Tambo International Airport. With less than two months left to finish its construction, the subway will enable travellers arriving at OR Tambo to get into Johannesburg within 15 minutes. Looking at the traffic situation in Johannesburg (by car it can take up to two hours to reach the airport), this is a great alternative for people to get around.
But there are many other measures being taken as the boom in South African tourism will likely be accompanied by an increase in human trafficking
. Additional police and security personnel are being recruited and trained, and border controls have been sharpened to prevent human trafficking. Yet, with South Africa’s counter-trafficking legislation still pending, there are still numerous men, women and children trafficked back and forth between borders. They end up as sex slaves, child prostitutes, and forced labourers.
Looking at the World Cup, the trafficking of women and girls for sexual abuse purposes is particularly likely to increase in order to meet the expected rise in demand for sex. The increase in police presence during the World Cup will hopefully render the environment too risky for traffickers to function as they wish and force them to keep a low profile. But at the same time the police force’s relationship with the sex work industry is abusive and turbulent. Policemen are free to abuse sex workers because their rights are not protected by law. Research undertaken by the Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) found that sex workers fear abuse by police members. “Our experience indicates that the highest levels of violence against sex workers come from the police and law enforcement sectors,” said Nicole Fick, researcher at SWEAT. As much as thirty percent of sex workers who have made statements to SWEAT have been forced to have sex with police officers.
Besides problems with the police, the proposed decriminalisation of sex wor
k before the World Cup significantly contributes to the complicated character of human trafficking too. In order to address these problems, the Southern African Counter-Trafficking Assistance Programme (SACTAP) has been working with the government and civil society to prevent the recruitment, trade and abuse of vulnerable people. One of the problems with human trafficking is that potential victims are uninformed. They often don’t realize what they are getting into when offered dubious opportunities that promise a better and easier life. For this reason awareness campaigns have been started which will hopefully limit human trafficking during the otherwise promising event for South Africa.
Read more about human trafficking in South Africa here
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