The Hawks made the arrest following a tip-off that a teenager was allegedly being held against her will. Picture on file
Cape Town - On the back of International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, the Hawks have made a breakthrough by arresting a foreign national who allegedly held a 17-year-old girl captive after trafficking her from Mozambique two years ago.
The accused, Moses Sithole, 38, appeared in the Vredendal Magistrate’s Court on Monday, where he faces charges of Trafficking in Persons as well as the Contravention of the Immigration Act.
The matter was postponed until tomorrow for the court to obtain an interpreter for Sithole. The Hawks made the arrest following a tip-off that a teenager was allegedly being held against her will.
Hawks spokesperson, Siyabulela Vukubi, said the teen was taken to a medical facility following her rescue.
Vukubi said the Hawks’ Economic Protected Resources Unit, Crime Intelligence, Vanrynsdorp Police Station and the Department of Home Affairs arrested the suspect on Thursday.
“The team received information about a foreign national who allegedly kept a 17-year-old girl at his residence against her will,” Vukubi said.
“The team proceeded to the suspect's residence in Vanrhynsdorp and upon entering the premises they found the victim. Investigation revealed that she was allegedly trafficked from Mozambique to South Africa two years ago. She was taken for a medical examination and thereafter taken to a place of safety.”
Embrace Dignity, an organisation that advocates for the rights of women and children and against sex trafficking and slavery, said they called for the emancipation of victims.
Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, Embrace Dignity’s co-founder and executive director of Cape Town, said: “We urge our government to denounce and take steps to end the exploitative system of prostitution - the oldest oppression in the world,” said Madlala-Routledge.
Madlala-Routledge said on December 2, 1949, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others.
“A world without the abuse of South African women and girls - free of all kinds of exploitation - is possible in our lifetime,” added Madlala-Routledge.
genevieve.serra@inl.co.za
Related Topics: