RSA - Sold Sisters
August 2003 – 25’00”
V/O 1
Maputo – where desperate poverty and unemployment has given rise to a secret trade. A Special Assignment undercover team is in the Mozambican capital for a meeting… with a human trafficker… a man who trades and smuggles in human beings.
We meet him in one of the suburbs. He takes us to a house to show us his wares.
UPS Jacques Pauw
So how many are here?
UPS smuggler
I think its four.
UPS Jacques Pauw
Four?
UPS smuggler
Ja. Can you first look and then choose? Lets go and see.
V/O 2
These Mozambican women are for sale… as sex slaves.
TITLE - Sold Sisters
V/O 3
For years, it seems, people have known about it… traffickers who lure young women to South Africa with false promises of jobs. As soon as they cross the border, they’re at the mercy of their traffickers: they can't speak English, don't know their way around, don't have legal papers and can't go to the police. Then they’re sold… as wives, prostitutes or sex slaves. The consequences are overwhelming… broken lives, rape, sexual exploitation and abuse. And yet… it is not illegal. Neither in Mozambique nor South Africa. People say the trade is rife…and that is why Special Assignment came to Maputo…to find the men - and women - at the helm of a dark and dirty trade.
UPS BELLA MUSANE - Human Rights Activist
Very often we see people coming from South Africa looking for girls to come into South Africa as sex slaves.
V/O 4
Bella Musane is a well-known Mozambican businesswoman and human rights activist. For a long time she has spoken out against human trafficking.
UPS BELLA MUSANE - Human Rights Activist
Well at the moment there is a total quietness I’ll say so. Very few parents speak because they fear death from the men who recruited the girls. I mean one can go to work and you expect to find your family at home and the next thing a child is missing.
V/O 5
Nobody seems to know how many Mozambican girls and women have been trafficked. The International Organisation for Migration or IOM says thousands of women are sold into sexual slavery in South Africa every year. IOM is an inter-governmental organisation that has just completed an investigation into the trafficking of Mozambicans to South Africa.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
A person is usually told and it’s often women, they are told that I have a job for you in another country and you can make a lot of money and the woman accepts, and the trafficker will make all the arrangements for the papers...the transportation, everything. They'll transport the girl the girl will come into the country, they will take the papers away from her and then she is told you are not going to be working in a restaurant as I told you are going too be doing sex work.
UPS BELLA MUSANE - Human Rights Activist
When we look in South Africa we see the most developed country. We see a country of gold and diamonds...a very developed country. And we expect everything marvellous from there.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
They are vulnerable because they are offered things that meet their dream expectations. What they want is they want to come to South Africa for example and get a job...
UPS - Willem Vorster - Department of Home Affairs
And then when they come into South Africa they find that the papers are not valid and that they are not being used or put into a position that they were promised that they would be put in.
V/O 6
Willem Vorster is a director in the Department of Home Affairs. He’s investigated several cases of human trafficking.
UPS - Willem Vorster - Department of Home Affairs
Most of the traffic ladies, children, young girls are being used for sexual practices.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
The woman is a slave in every sense of the word and she is property and as property the owner can threaten her with absolutely anything.
UPS - Willem Vorster - Department of Home Affairs
In the end of the day those people must become soloists. If you have seen some of them with empty eyes, totally empty eyes, it’s not a pleasure to see...no!
V/O 7
Our investigation started in one of Maputo's most notorious nightspots…Luso…frequented by young girls and prostitutes. This is one of the places where traders and traffickers recruit their victims.
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
Prostitutes range from 12 to 28.They are there because there is a need. Most of them pay for their schooling, they help buy food for home, they dress themselves. There is an absolute necessity for them to get money from somewhere.
V/O 8
Alex Stellianos knows Luso well. He's a former police informant who’s investigated the sex, drug and trafficking trade in Maputo.
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
So yes they hear about it and they see on television the glamour and glitz of joburg and they think its heaven and earth. They would all like to go there for an easier life.
UPS - Lucrencia Shimene - Sex Worker
Subtitled - Luso is nice. Here a person chooses who to sleep with. If you want to sleep with me, you need money.
V/O 9
Lucrencia Shimene is a sex worker at Luso. This is where she was recruited… When she was only 17 years old. She was taken from Maputo to South Africa and sold as a sex slave to a Mozambican mineworker.
UPS - Lucrencia Shimene - Sex Worker
In November 2001 i went to Jo'burg, Carletonville...and stayed for a year. I came back in November 2002.
V/O 10
Most of the girls at Luso, said Lucrencia, are desperate to come to South Africa… Desperate enough to believe any promise made by any man.
UPS - Lucrencia Shimene - Sex Worker
He keeps you by force. He doesn't give you money. He only buys you food. He doesn't care about you. When you left here you wanted to work. But there is no job...and he sells you to a man.
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
It is a known fact in South Africa that a Mozambican prostitutes is a favourite to men...its a favourite demand to men.
UPS - Lucrencia Shimene - Sex Worker
You are suffering but there is no money to go back. You stay, you suffer. There is no money to go back to Mozambique.
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
They get abused, they get used until such time when there is no more need.
V/O 11
Moemia Americo is also a regular at Luso. She was one of the Mozambican girls who landed up as a sex worker in a brothel in Hillbrow. Today, she is back at school in Maputo.
UPS - Moemia Americo - Sex worker
People there they are mad. You can be killed, you can come home with scar, you can get AIDS...
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
It’s condemned for life. They get exposed too fairly big money. They get addicted to that money.
UPS - Moemia Americo - Sex worker
Money...
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
Easy come, easy go. As fast as they make the money they spend it.
UPS - Moemia Americo - Sex worker
He say i don’t enjoy condom...i say why, you don’t know me if i am sick or what. He say i believe you not sick, i say me i don’t know if you’re sick or not he say no i make tests every six months and we went to bed.
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
With the amount of alcohol and drugs that they...that goes with this. I cannot imagine this girl lasting for longer than a year.
UPS - Moemia Americo - Sex worker
You can die in Joburg. Like when you don’t have family with money what people going to do with you. You just stay there and finished.
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
Others of them that’s been more unlucky to die of aids, turn to alcoholics, drug addicts and they never return home in that condition.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
They don’t speak the language, they don’t know anybody they are taken to a house or a flat. They don’t know the area, they may not trust the police, they don’t know how to get out.
UPS - Willem Vorster - Department of Home Affairs
There is always some element of drugs involved. Either of drugging the girls, because you asked me the question how they become prostitutes. That's part of it.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
We found traffickers who are taxi drivers, we found traffickers who are village women who take advantage of girls in the village.
V/O 12
Although Maputo is slowly regaining its former glory after years of civil war, unemployment is still rife - a happy hunting ground for traffickers.
AD BREAK
V/O 13
Our quest to find human traffickers started in December last year in the border town of Komatipoort. Armed with a concealed camera, we asked around: where can we find Mozambican girls to work as prostitutes in Johannesburg?
Before long, we had a name: Mzet.
UPS - SPY CAM JOURNALIST
Mzet, from where too where does he move people?
UPS - CHILD
Yes, from Mozambique to Johannesburg
V/O 14
Everyone, it seemed, even children, knew who he was. This is Mzet, alias Elliot Khoza, alias Joseph Lubisi. A Mozambican, he’s a professional human smuggler and trafficker. He said he could get us any girl, of any age we wanted.
He tells them that they’ll work in a restaurant. But as soon as they’ve crossed the border illegally, they’re at his mercy and he sells them into slavery.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
There is a steady stream and a steady supply that is coming through. You have to have the right connections obviously to know how to access those flows. But once you have those connections then it is no problem.
V/O 15
Mzet told us that he sells the girls as wives or prostitutes to Mozambican mineworkers in South Africa.
UPS JAC
They go for the jobs on the mines?
UPS - MZET
Ja, i sell them on the mines.
UPS JAC
She becomes a prostitute on the mine?
UPS - MZET
Ja
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
Trafficking does follow the mines, you have large groups of men who earn money and don’t have much to spend it on, don’t have a lot of outside recreation, they work and that’s it. It’s a market.
V/O 16
Mzet said that there are two ways to smuggle Mozambicans into South Africa. They either "jump" the border fence. Or he bribes custom officials at the Lebombo border post. He said he knows officials and soldiers and pays them off.
UPS Mzet
The problem is the fence. I meet soldiers. I must give them something. Sometimes they catch me and i must talk to them.
UPS JAC
So how much must you pay the soldiers?
UPS Mzet
I think i must give R150
UPS - Willem Vorster - Department of Home Affairs
The level of corruption varies. And it’s pathetic if you could see how people would be corrupt. Corruption in the true sense of the word in the department. You will find everywhere, no government can pay an official enough to be honest.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
If your good at crossing borders you can traffic drugs, you can traffic guns, you can traffic women...you know. And all of them make money for you.
V/O 17
In February, Special Assignment and Mzet traveled together to Maputo. Days before he had made contact with us. He’d told us we must go to the Mozambican capital. He said he had recruited seven girls. They were available for a R1 000 each. And for that price, he said, he would deliver them to our doorstep in Johannesburg. The remaining ones would be sold on the mines or to men who wanted wives or sex slaves. The women, he said, were all between the ages of 18 and 21. All came from Maputo and were jobless.
They wanted to go to Johannesburg… but were unaware that they were being paraded to be sold as sex slaves.
Later we asked Mzet how he was going to persuade them to become prostitutes. He said it was easy - he and friends rape them. He called it "the washing of the hands".
UPS - Jac
They all think they're going to work in a restaurant?
UPS - Mzet
Ja.
UPS - Jac
Is that what you've told them?
UPS - Mzet
Ja
UPS - Jac
And when do you tell them the real story?
UPS - Mzet
I'll tell them in my house in Komatipoort.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
Sometimes its physical abuse, sometimes the girls are raped. This seems to be quiet common. They are raped on the journey.
V/O 18
Mazet's girlfriend is a Mozambican woman called Hercilia. She recruits the girls.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
Traffickers, recruiters in particular are very often women for one and they're often known to the victim. These are people you should trust. Not just because you are desperate but because you have known them for years.
V/O 19
There seems to be a network of traffickers in Maputo. While we were waiting for Mzet to round up the other girls and arrange transport to South Africa, we heard about another human trader: Abrantes Gumede. He operates in one of the local markets and offered us girls, drugs and counterfeit dollars. We told him we were interested in girls. That he said, is easy. He told us that he often supplies brothels in Pretoria and Pietermaritzburg. He said that he had several girls available.
UPS - Jac
And how old are they?
UPS - Abrantes Gumede
One is 18 and the other 22.
UPS - Jac
And the other two?
UPS - Abrantes Gumede
I don’t know. A similar age.
UPS - Jac
And how many girls can you get?
UPS - Abrantes Gumede
It depends on how many you need.
V/O 19
Abrantes uses a female friend to recruit the girls in the local market. He took us to the market and showed us one of the women that would be available: a girl with the name of Anita who worked at a local pub.
The next day, Abrantes took us to a bar to show us the girls: Anita and Elziera.
UPS - Abrantes Gumede
I couldn't tell them they have to be prostitutes. I couldn't. But i told them maybe they must get a boyfriend...is the way i told them, it was so hard for me...
UPS - Jac
So you told them they are going to be waitresses?
UPS - Abrantes Gumede
Yes
V/O 20
Across the city, Mzet was ready to leave with two of the girls: Elvinah and Amelia. We didn't know where the other girls were or what his plan for them was. At that stage, the two girls were still totally oblivious to what lay ahead. Amelia showed us pictures of her family and baby.
Minutes later, they were loaded onto a taxi and driven off towards South Africa. At that stage they still thought that they were going to cross the border post by car… and that it would be an easy journey.
Abrantes was also getting ready to send his girls to Johannesburg. We managed to warn the two girls that they shouldn't board the taxi… that there were no jobs for them in South Africa.
The next day, we spoke to Anita and her family on their small- holding outside Maputo.
UPS - Anita
All i knew was that i was going to work in a restaurant. The friend said four people were needed. We were interested because we were offered accommodation. We could come home over weekends.
UPS - Anita's next of kin
It’s wrong because it would have hurt me. Since childhood she's never behaved like that. She's never gone out and sold her body to men. She drinks liquor but its not a habit.
UPS - Anita
I am still afraid. I'm shocked because I’ve never experienced anything like this in my life.
V/O 21
Abrantes disappeared when he heard that we were journalists. We haven't heard from him again.
Amelia and Elvinah arrived in Johannesburg two days after leaving Maputo. On the journey one of the girls told Mzet that she had seen us with a camera. Mzet became suspicious. After that he refused to speak to us again. We were concerned the girls might land up on the mines or be sold as prostitutes. We knew one of Mazet's safe houses outside Johannesburg and called in police assistance to rescue them.
The police raided the property. They found fifteen illegal Mozambican immigrants brought in by Mzet earlier that morning. The men said that five women had been with them. Four had already been taken away. The fifth had run off.
The owners of the property admitted that they knew Mzet as Elliot Khoza. But that they had nothing to do with his operation.
UPS - Maria Biela
Elliot Khoza is a person, which i know from last year. He is staying in Komatipoort. He is using a taxi but he is taking people from that side to this side.
UPS Robert Biela
The women Elliot bring here, he gives to husbands.
UPS - Maria Biela
We are not checking what kind of people he is taking from that side to this side. Either they are legal or they are not legal.
V/O 22
Amelia and Elvinah were not there. We didn't know about any other houses. We phoned Mzet. With the help of the police, we persuaded him to tell us where they were. He gave us an address in the township of Fine Town a few kilometres away.
The girls were still waiting there… for Mazet to take them to the restaurant.
We told them that they were on the verge of being sold. They decided to come with us. There and then Mzet's girlfriend and the recruiter of the girls, Hercillia, decided to abandon her lover.
UPS - ETELVINAH NKUNA
Hercilia said there are people who wanted six of us to work in a restaurant.
UPS - Amelia Khosa
I had a baby who was still suckling. I quit breastfeeding to go to Johannesburg to work. The baby's father has a wife and doesn't support me.
UPS - ETELVINAH NKUNA
They said we will go through the border with a white man and wouldn't be arrested and we would cross safely. But we had to walk through the bush and jump fences.
V/O 23
When they arrived at Mazet's house in Komatipoort, the men were waiting for them. They were told: you will sleep with us, or else…
UPS - ETELVINAH NKUNA
He would have done it. He threatened me. He said he would kill me if i refuse.
UPS - Amelia Khosa
She slept that night with that man. When i asked her what happened, she said she had agreed. I didn't.
UPS - ETELVINAH NKUNA
He said i should thank him as i was going to earn so much money.
UPS - Amelia Khosa
In the morning i said no, they would never have me. I was going nowhere and don’t want a job. I want to go back. I am not interested. Rather than suffer in Joburg looking for money, I'll goo back to Maputo.
V/O 24
Elvinah. Amelia and Hercillia have been repatriated back to Maputo. They’re once again with their families. Neither Mzet nor Abrantes have even been questioned by the authorities. Trafficking is after all, not a crime.
UPS BELLA MUSANE - Human Rights Activist
All the girls who are dedicating themselves to sex slavery they never came back alive and kicking. They never came back with some richness which they are expecting.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
Criminalisation of trafficking is essential it gives the police something to work with. Its a cross border crime and sometimes you need to co-operate with neighbouring states or source countries to deal with this properly.
UPS BELLA MUSANE - Human Rights Activist
The people that are recruiting them are not arrested because i think the law doesn’t take this as a crime.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
The similarities are just too obvious to ignore. We've condemned slavery, let’s condemn trafficking.
August 2003 – 25’00”
V/O 1
Maputo – where desperate poverty and unemployment has given rise to a secret trade. A Special Assignment undercover team is in the Mozambican capital for a meeting… with a human trafficker… a man who trades and smuggles in human beings.
We meet him in one of the suburbs. He takes us to a house to show us his wares.
UPS Jacques Pauw
So how many are here?
UPS smuggler
I think its four.
UPS Jacques Pauw
Four?
UPS smuggler
Ja. Can you first look and then choose? Lets go and see.
V/O 2
These Mozambican women are for sale… as sex slaves.
TITLE - Sold Sisters
V/O 3
For years, it seems, people have known about it… traffickers who lure young women to South Africa with false promises of jobs. As soon as they cross the border, they’re at the mercy of their traffickers: they can't speak English, don't know their way around, don't have legal papers and can't go to the police. Then they’re sold… as wives, prostitutes or sex slaves. The consequences are overwhelming… broken lives, rape, sexual exploitation and abuse. And yet… it is not illegal. Neither in Mozambique nor South Africa. People say the trade is rife…and that is why Special Assignment came to Maputo…to find the men - and women - at the helm of a dark and dirty trade.
UPS BELLA MUSANE - Human Rights Activist
Very often we see people coming from South Africa looking for girls to come into South Africa as sex slaves.
V/O 4
Bella Musane is a well-known Mozambican businesswoman and human rights activist. For a long time she has spoken out against human trafficking.
UPS BELLA MUSANE - Human Rights Activist
Well at the moment there is a total quietness I’ll say so. Very few parents speak because they fear death from the men who recruited the girls. I mean one can go to work and you expect to find your family at home and the next thing a child is missing.
V/O 5
Nobody seems to know how many Mozambican girls and women have been trafficked. The International Organisation for Migration or IOM says thousands of women are sold into sexual slavery in South Africa every year. IOM is an inter-governmental organisation that has just completed an investigation into the trafficking of Mozambicans to South Africa.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
A person is usually told and it’s often women, they are told that I have a job for you in another country and you can make a lot of money and the woman accepts, and the trafficker will make all the arrangements for the papers...the transportation, everything. They'll transport the girl the girl will come into the country, they will take the papers away from her and then she is told you are not going to be working in a restaurant as I told you are going too be doing sex work.
UPS BELLA MUSANE - Human Rights Activist
When we look in South Africa we see the most developed country. We see a country of gold and diamonds...a very developed country. And we expect everything marvellous from there.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
They are vulnerable because they are offered things that meet their dream expectations. What they want is they want to come to South Africa for example and get a job...
UPS - Willem Vorster - Department of Home Affairs
And then when they come into South Africa they find that the papers are not valid and that they are not being used or put into a position that they were promised that they would be put in.
V/O 6
Willem Vorster is a director in the Department of Home Affairs. He’s investigated several cases of human trafficking.
UPS - Willem Vorster - Department of Home Affairs
Most of the traffic ladies, children, young girls are being used for sexual practices.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
The woman is a slave in every sense of the word and she is property and as property the owner can threaten her with absolutely anything.
UPS - Willem Vorster - Department of Home Affairs
In the end of the day those people must become soloists. If you have seen some of them with empty eyes, totally empty eyes, it’s not a pleasure to see...no!
V/O 7
Our investigation started in one of Maputo's most notorious nightspots…Luso…frequented by young girls and prostitutes. This is one of the places where traders and traffickers recruit their victims.
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
Prostitutes range from 12 to 28.They are there because there is a need. Most of them pay for their schooling, they help buy food for home, they dress themselves. There is an absolute necessity for them to get money from somewhere.
V/O 8
Alex Stellianos knows Luso well. He's a former police informant who’s investigated the sex, drug and trafficking trade in Maputo.
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
So yes they hear about it and they see on television the glamour and glitz of joburg and they think its heaven and earth. They would all like to go there for an easier life.
UPS - Lucrencia Shimene - Sex Worker
Subtitled - Luso is nice. Here a person chooses who to sleep with. If you want to sleep with me, you need money.
V/O 9
Lucrencia Shimene is a sex worker at Luso. This is where she was recruited… When she was only 17 years old. She was taken from Maputo to South Africa and sold as a sex slave to a Mozambican mineworker.
UPS - Lucrencia Shimene - Sex Worker
In November 2001 i went to Jo'burg, Carletonville...and stayed for a year. I came back in November 2002.
V/O 10
Most of the girls at Luso, said Lucrencia, are desperate to come to South Africa… Desperate enough to believe any promise made by any man.
UPS - Lucrencia Shimene - Sex Worker
He keeps you by force. He doesn't give you money. He only buys you food. He doesn't care about you. When you left here you wanted to work. But there is no job...and he sells you to a man.
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
It is a known fact in South Africa that a Mozambican prostitutes is a favourite to men...its a favourite demand to men.
UPS - Lucrencia Shimene - Sex Worker
You are suffering but there is no money to go back. You stay, you suffer. There is no money to go back to Mozambique.
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
They get abused, they get used until such time when there is no more need.
V/O 11
Moemia Americo is also a regular at Luso. She was one of the Mozambican girls who landed up as a sex worker in a brothel in Hillbrow. Today, she is back at school in Maputo.
UPS - Moemia Americo - Sex worker
People there they are mad. You can be killed, you can come home with scar, you can get AIDS...
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
It’s condemned for life. They get exposed too fairly big money. They get addicted to that money.
UPS - Moemia Americo - Sex worker
Money...
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
Easy come, easy go. As fast as they make the money they spend it.
UPS - Moemia Americo - Sex worker
He say i don’t enjoy condom...i say why, you don’t know me if i am sick or what. He say i believe you not sick, i say me i don’t know if you’re sick or not he say no i make tests every six months and we went to bed.
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
With the amount of alcohol and drugs that they...that goes with this. I cannot imagine this girl lasting for longer than a year.
UPS - Moemia Americo - Sex worker
You can die in Joburg. Like when you don’t have family with money what people going to do with you. You just stay there and finished.
UPS - Alex Stellianos - former police informant
Others of them that’s been more unlucky to die of aids, turn to alcoholics, drug addicts and they never return home in that condition.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
They don’t speak the language, they don’t know anybody they are taken to a house or a flat. They don’t know the area, they may not trust the police, they don’t know how to get out.
UPS - Willem Vorster - Department of Home Affairs
There is always some element of drugs involved. Either of drugging the girls, because you asked me the question how they become prostitutes. That's part of it.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
We found traffickers who are taxi drivers, we found traffickers who are village women who take advantage of girls in the village.
V/O 12
Although Maputo is slowly regaining its former glory after years of civil war, unemployment is still rife - a happy hunting ground for traffickers.
AD BREAK
V/O 13
Our quest to find human traffickers started in December last year in the border town of Komatipoort. Armed with a concealed camera, we asked around: where can we find Mozambican girls to work as prostitutes in Johannesburg?
Before long, we had a name: Mzet.
UPS - SPY CAM JOURNALIST
Mzet, from where too where does he move people?
UPS - CHILD
Yes, from Mozambique to Johannesburg
V/O 14
Everyone, it seemed, even children, knew who he was. This is Mzet, alias Elliot Khoza, alias Joseph Lubisi. A Mozambican, he’s a professional human smuggler and trafficker. He said he could get us any girl, of any age we wanted.
He tells them that they’ll work in a restaurant. But as soon as they’ve crossed the border illegally, they’re at his mercy and he sells them into slavery.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
There is a steady stream and a steady supply that is coming through. You have to have the right connections obviously to know how to access those flows. But once you have those connections then it is no problem.
V/O 15
Mzet told us that he sells the girls as wives or prostitutes to Mozambican mineworkers in South Africa.
UPS JAC
They go for the jobs on the mines?
UPS - MZET
Ja, i sell them on the mines.
UPS JAC
She becomes a prostitute on the mine?
UPS - MZET
Ja
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
Trafficking does follow the mines, you have large groups of men who earn money and don’t have much to spend it on, don’t have a lot of outside recreation, they work and that’s it. It’s a market.
V/O 16
Mzet said that there are two ways to smuggle Mozambicans into South Africa. They either "jump" the border fence. Or he bribes custom officials at the Lebombo border post. He said he knows officials and soldiers and pays them off.
UPS Mzet
The problem is the fence. I meet soldiers. I must give them something. Sometimes they catch me and i must talk to them.
UPS JAC
So how much must you pay the soldiers?
UPS Mzet
I think i must give R150
UPS - Willem Vorster - Department of Home Affairs
The level of corruption varies. And it’s pathetic if you could see how people would be corrupt. Corruption in the true sense of the word in the department. You will find everywhere, no government can pay an official enough to be honest.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
If your good at crossing borders you can traffic drugs, you can traffic guns, you can traffic women...you know. And all of them make money for you.
V/O 17
In February, Special Assignment and Mzet traveled together to Maputo. Days before he had made contact with us. He’d told us we must go to the Mozambican capital. He said he had recruited seven girls. They were available for a R1 000 each. And for that price, he said, he would deliver them to our doorstep in Johannesburg. The remaining ones would be sold on the mines or to men who wanted wives or sex slaves. The women, he said, were all between the ages of 18 and 21. All came from Maputo and were jobless.
They wanted to go to Johannesburg… but were unaware that they were being paraded to be sold as sex slaves.
Later we asked Mzet how he was going to persuade them to become prostitutes. He said it was easy - he and friends rape them. He called it "the washing of the hands".
UPS - Jac
They all think they're going to work in a restaurant?
UPS - Mzet
Ja.
UPS - Jac
Is that what you've told them?
UPS - Mzet
Ja
UPS - Jac
And when do you tell them the real story?
UPS - Mzet
I'll tell them in my house in Komatipoort.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
Sometimes its physical abuse, sometimes the girls are raped. This seems to be quiet common. They are raped on the journey.
V/O 18
Mazet's girlfriend is a Mozambican woman called Hercilia. She recruits the girls.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
Traffickers, recruiters in particular are very often women for one and they're often known to the victim. These are people you should trust. Not just because you are desperate but because you have known them for years.
V/O 19
There seems to be a network of traffickers in Maputo. While we were waiting for Mzet to round up the other girls and arrange transport to South Africa, we heard about another human trader: Abrantes Gumede. He operates in one of the local markets and offered us girls, drugs and counterfeit dollars. We told him we were interested in girls. That he said, is easy. He told us that he often supplies brothels in Pretoria and Pietermaritzburg. He said that he had several girls available.
UPS - Jac
And how old are they?
UPS - Abrantes Gumede
One is 18 and the other 22.
UPS - Jac
And the other two?
UPS - Abrantes Gumede
I don’t know. A similar age.
UPS - Jac
And how many girls can you get?
UPS - Abrantes Gumede
It depends on how many you need.
V/O 19
Abrantes uses a female friend to recruit the girls in the local market. He took us to the market and showed us one of the women that would be available: a girl with the name of Anita who worked at a local pub.
The next day, Abrantes took us to a bar to show us the girls: Anita and Elziera.
UPS - Abrantes Gumede
I couldn't tell them they have to be prostitutes. I couldn't. But i told them maybe they must get a boyfriend...is the way i told them, it was so hard for me...
UPS - Jac
So you told them they are going to be waitresses?
UPS - Abrantes Gumede
Yes
V/O 20
Across the city, Mzet was ready to leave with two of the girls: Elvinah and Amelia. We didn't know where the other girls were or what his plan for them was. At that stage, the two girls were still totally oblivious to what lay ahead. Amelia showed us pictures of her family and baby.
Minutes later, they were loaded onto a taxi and driven off towards South Africa. At that stage they still thought that they were going to cross the border post by car… and that it would be an easy journey.
Abrantes was also getting ready to send his girls to Johannesburg. We managed to warn the two girls that they shouldn't board the taxi… that there were no jobs for them in South Africa.
The next day, we spoke to Anita and her family on their small- holding outside Maputo.
UPS - Anita
All i knew was that i was going to work in a restaurant. The friend said four people were needed. We were interested because we were offered accommodation. We could come home over weekends.
UPS - Anita's next of kin
It’s wrong because it would have hurt me. Since childhood she's never behaved like that. She's never gone out and sold her body to men. She drinks liquor but its not a habit.
UPS - Anita
I am still afraid. I'm shocked because I’ve never experienced anything like this in my life.
V/O 21
Abrantes disappeared when he heard that we were journalists. We haven't heard from him again.
Amelia and Elvinah arrived in Johannesburg two days after leaving Maputo. On the journey one of the girls told Mzet that she had seen us with a camera. Mzet became suspicious. After that he refused to speak to us again. We were concerned the girls might land up on the mines or be sold as prostitutes. We knew one of Mazet's safe houses outside Johannesburg and called in police assistance to rescue them.
The police raided the property. They found fifteen illegal Mozambican immigrants brought in by Mzet earlier that morning. The men said that five women had been with them. Four had already been taken away. The fifth had run off.
The owners of the property admitted that they knew Mzet as Elliot Khoza. But that they had nothing to do with his operation.
UPS - Maria Biela
Elliot Khoza is a person, which i know from last year. He is staying in Komatipoort. He is using a taxi but he is taking people from that side to this side.
UPS Robert Biela
The women Elliot bring here, he gives to husbands.
UPS - Maria Biela
We are not checking what kind of people he is taking from that side to this side. Either they are legal or they are not legal.
V/O 22
Amelia and Elvinah were not there. We didn't know about any other houses. We phoned Mzet. With the help of the police, we persuaded him to tell us where they were. He gave us an address in the township of Fine Town a few kilometres away.
The girls were still waiting there… for Mazet to take them to the restaurant.
We told them that they were on the verge of being sold. They decided to come with us. There and then Mzet's girlfriend and the recruiter of the girls, Hercillia, decided to abandon her lover.
UPS - ETELVINAH NKUNA
Hercilia said there are people who wanted six of us to work in a restaurant.
UPS - Amelia Khosa
I had a baby who was still suckling. I quit breastfeeding to go to Johannesburg to work. The baby's father has a wife and doesn't support me.
UPS - ETELVINAH NKUNA
They said we will go through the border with a white man and wouldn't be arrested and we would cross safely. But we had to walk through the bush and jump fences.
V/O 23
When they arrived at Mazet's house in Komatipoort, the men were waiting for them. They were told: you will sleep with us, or else…
UPS - ETELVINAH NKUNA
He would have done it. He threatened me. He said he would kill me if i refuse.
UPS - Amelia Khosa
She slept that night with that man. When i asked her what happened, she said she had agreed. I didn't.
UPS - ETELVINAH NKUNA
He said i should thank him as i was going to earn so much money.
UPS - Amelia Khosa
In the morning i said no, they would never have me. I was going nowhere and don’t want a job. I want to go back. I am not interested. Rather than suffer in Joburg looking for money, I'll goo back to Maputo.
V/O 24
Elvinah. Amelia and Hercillia have been repatriated back to Maputo. They’re once again with their families. Neither Mzet nor Abrantes have even been questioned by the authorities. Trafficking is after all, not a crime.
UPS BELLA MUSANE - Human Rights Activist
All the girls who are dedicating themselves to sex slavery they never came back alive and kicking. They never came back with some richness which they are expecting.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
Criminalisation of trafficking is essential it gives the police something to work with. Its a cross border crime and sometimes you need to co-operate with neighbouring states or source countries to deal with this properly.
UPS BELLA MUSANE - Human Rights Activist
The people that are recruiting them are not arrested because i think the law doesn’t take this as a crime.
UPS - Jonathan Martens - International Organisation for Migration
The similarities are just too obvious to ignore. We've condemned slavery, let’s condemn trafficking.