Opening address by Dr EG Pahad, Minister in the The Presidency at the Global Initiative to Counter Human Trafficking - International Forum, Cape Town

"Interfaith Dialogue: What the Religious Community can do to Combat Trafficking"

Archbishop Njongonkulu W. Ndungane (Archbishop of Cape Town)
Antonia Maria Costa, Executive Director, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
Religious leaders,
Ladies and gentlemen.

On behalf of President Thabo Mbeki, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, and the Government of South Africa I would like to thank the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for organising this vitally important Forum here in South Africa. This UN sponsored Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking is most timely in this year which marks the 200th Anniversary of the abolition of slavery. And the Atlantic slave trade was certainly the most abhorrent example of the forcible trafficking in human beings.

In 1810, Saartjie Baartman a twenty-one year old South African Griqua woman employed as a servant on a farm near Cape Town was lured by Dr. William Dunlop, who promised her fame and fortune, in England. Baartman readily accepted his offer, and travelled with him to London by ship. Shortly after arriving in London Dunlop chose to exhibit her in the nude in front of large crowds of Londoners, who paid one shilling each to view the "Hottentot Venus" from Africa. Baartman was made to parade naked along a 'stage two feet high, along which she was led by her keeper and exhibited like a wild beast, being obliged to walk, stand or sit as he ordered'. She was depicted as a wild animal in a cage, dancing for her keeper (Insane Tree Promotions).

Eventually in order to feed herself and survive Baartman turned to prostitution. When she died, abandoned and alone in France, only six years after leaving Cape Town, her body was dissected, her skeleton was removed, and her brain and genitals were pickled and displayed as curiosities in the Musee de l'Homme in Paris for the next 160 years (Davie, 2002).

In 1994 then-President Nelson Mandela made an official request to have her remains returned to South Africa. Her story is, as a commentator notes is "the most notorious case of African trafficking never to have been named as such". But her experience of recruitment by deception and cross-border transportation for sexual exploitation is one common to millions of women, children and men worldwide (Marquis, 2003: A3). Like Baartman they too seek to escape poverty and are lured by promises of well-paying jobs abroad. They willingly accept enticing offers made by human traffickers without realising the full nature of their future employment, or the conditions of labour and are then caught in an intricate web of immense disadvantage and deceit from which they are incapable of extricating themselves.

I am proud to say that on 14 December 2000 South Africa signed, and on 20 February 2004 ratified the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (hereafter referred to as the Palermo Protocol). We are one of at least 117 countries to have ratified the Protocol. In so doing, we as a country committed ourselves to criminalising trafficking and developing legislation to combat it. The National Prosecuting Authority has been tasked with coordinating this process and has formed an inter-sectoral task team to oversee the development of legislation. Provisions on trafficking have already been included in the Children's Bill, and the revised Sexual Offences Act has a dedicated chapter to criminalising trafficking for sexual purposes.

Trafficking in human beings is morally reprehensible, it is illegal; it robs people of their dignity and violates their fundamental human rights. It objectifies and commodifies individuals, preys on the vulnerable and the marginalised, it perpetuates their vulnerabilities and it repeatedly victimises and re-victimises those who are the objects of the trafficking. Trafficking in human beings is a transnational crime that takes advantage of trade liberalisation and regional trading blocks that have eased restrictions on the migration of labour across borders.

The Palermo Protocol is one of three supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime. It provides an inclusive definition of trafficking and identifies some basic principles for combating it. It represents the first international agreement on a broad-based response to an issue that has occupied policy makers for at least a century or more. Article 3 of the Palermo Protocol defines trafficking as:

"... the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons by means of the 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 or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation."

Trafficking as we are all aware is not the same as the smuggling of human cargo, which is defined in the Smuggling Protocol as "the procurement, or order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, from the illegal entry of a person" into a country of which they are not a national or a permanent resident.

Trafficking and smuggling clearly share some characteristics in common - irregular migration, recruitment and transportation by criminal networks, the use of weak border controls and corruption. Trafficking is very much a power relationship which is coercive and often involves deception. Individuals are recruited for the purpose of exploiting their body and or their labour. The primary purpose of trafficking is exploitation (including the prostitution of others, forced labour and the removal of organs) and this is what distinguishes it from smuggling and migration more broadly.

For us in South Africa, signing and ratifying the Protocol was a natural extension of our commitment to human rights as enshrined in our Constitution. Section 13 of our constitution unequivocally states that no one shall be subject to any form of slavery, servitude, or forced labour in South Africa. The state has a Constitutional duty to protect the rights of all our citizens. Section 1 of the Constitution also informs us that "the Republic of South Africa is one, sovereign, democratic state founded on the following values: (a) human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms". One of the ways in which these rights, such as human dignity and freedom, can be protected is through the implementation of legislation designed to deal effectively with human trafficking.

In this endeavour we must first, make trafficking a crime; second, provide protection for the victims of trafficking; and, third, ensure greater solidarity amongst nations in the battle against all forms of human trafficking. And in this regard, the Palermo Protocol is explicit "Each state shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences the conduct set forth in article 3 of this Protocol, when committed intentionally."

Collectively we need to get accurate data on trafficking globally, nationally and regionally. Global statistics on trafficking vary widely. A comparison of global statistics on human trafficking by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 2003 show huge discrepancies in the figures. The highest, used by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the UN, put the number of people trafficked internationally at four million a year. The lowest, sourced from the US Department of State, puts the figure at under one million people a year. These figures are likely drawn from the Department of State's annual Trafficking in Persons report, which in 2005 estimated that between 600 000 and 800 000 people are trafficked across international borders each year - 80% of whom are women and girls, and 50% of whom are minors.

This estimate is down from the 700 000 to four million quoted in the Department's 2002 report. And the current concept paper for this Forum puts the figure at 800,000 persons trafficked across global borders annually. The paper also points to the role of organised crime and the reality that trafficking in persons is a highly profitable and lucrative business - a total market value of $32 billion ($10 billion realised at point of sale of persons and $22 billion risk free profit from related criminal activity.

While we can all agree that even if one person is trafficked that is one too many, there are still challenges with respect to the accuracy and reliability of both global and national data and with respect to how the numbers are arrived at. So, funding research that allows us to more accurately gauge the extent, the nature and the form of the problem is invaluable to good, sound policy. We know that trafficking is an under-reported crime, that even law enforcement officials do not record trafficking cases accurately, and that the lack of awareness of what trafficking is about, all impact on the accuracy of the data. But this is precisely where your assistance with awareness raising is so very important to the efforts of government.

Studies on trafficking in South Africa point to our country being a key destination as well as a country of origin and transit point for individuals trafficked to and from Africa and Europe as well as globally. Certainly given a few high profile cases of trafficking there is increased awareness of trafficking within South Africa. What we do not have, with any measure of accuracy is the full extent of the problem.

A 2003 report by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) on the trafficking of women and children for purposes of sexual exploitation in South and Southern Africa estimated that at least 1000 women are trafficked into South Africa from Mozambique (IOM Paper, 'Seduction, Sale and Slavery: Trafficking of Women and Children for Sexual Exploitation in Southern Africa.' 3rd Edition, 2003). The Report also found that South Africa was a transit point for women and children trafficked from the SADC region. However the Report was unable to provide reliable estimates on the numbers of women, men and children trafficked into and out of South Africa and the surrounding countries. The report noted that the working conditions of women trafficked into the industry are extremely exploitative and include debt-bondage, long working hours, a limited right to refuse clients, and removal of their freedom of movement these are violations of fundamental human rights.

The Report also identified nine distinct patterns of trafficking activity have that have emerged in southern Africa:

1. trafficking of women from refugee-producing countries to South Africa;
2. trafficking of children from Lesotho to towns in the Eastern Free State of South Africa;
3. trafficking of women and girls from Mozambique to Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal;
4. trafficking of women from Malawi to Northern Europe;
5. trafficking of girl and boy children from Malawi to Northern Europe;
6. trafficking of women and girls from Malawi to South Africa overland;
7. trafficking of women from Thailand to South Africa;
8. trafficking of women from China to South Africa;
9. trafficking of Eastern European women to South Africa.

In truth, we know very little about the scope and characteristics and patterns of human trafficking in South Africa.

Most of the literature has focused on the trafficking of women and children into the commercial sex industry. Interestingly recent studies including one from the ILO study reveal large numbers of men, women and children who are trafficked into a range of work outside of the sex industry. The ILO study in particular shows that although sexual exploitation accounts for the single largest category of exploitation, a little over half of all those trafficked were involved either in some kind of economic exploitation or in mixed or undisclosed activities. So conflating trafficking with sex exploitation is problematic. And equally problematic is the underestimation of the numbers of men and boys who are trafficked. With respect to the forced economic exploitation by gender for example the ILO found that men and boys accounted for 44% and women and girls for 56% of those exploited, while for forced sexual exploitation by gender and women and girls accounted for 98% and men and boys for only 2% of those forcibly exploited. So we need more research and more nuanced research.

Trafficking is a result of a complex set of interrelated push and pull factors. On the 'push' side most studies focus on such factors as poverty, a lack of opportunities, dislocation, gender, racial and ethnic inequalities, and the break-up of families. 'Pull' factors include the promise of a better life, consumer aspirations, and lack of information on the risks involved, established patterns of migration, porous borders and fewer constraints on travel.

Recent research points to the importance of understanding the structural roots of trafficking - noting that the factors underlying trafficking are complex and go well beyond individual needs to include uneven patterns of development, the demand for cheap labour, criminality, the global and national policy environment, and societal attitudes that are permissive towards using potentially trafficked labour.

One interesting study linked trafficking to the changed global division of labour. As more women in the North entered the labour market, the demand for un and semi-skilled domestic labour increased. And this combined with higher costs of living, rising levels of poverty and unemployment in many poorer countries, creates a very fertile ground for trafficking in women as even working women from the middle strata in the North increasingly hiring others to cook, clean and provide child and elder care.

The ILO Report notes that "A major incentive for trafficking in labour is the lack of application and enforcement of labour standards ... tolerance of restrictions on freedom of movement, long working hours, poor or non-existent health and safety protections, non-payment of wages, substandard housing, etc. all contribute to expanding a market for trafficked migrants who have no choice but to labour in conditions simply intolerable and unacceptable for legal employment" (ILO, cited in Anderson & O'Connell Davidson, 2004, op cit, p 32.).

Here is an important role for the religious community to play. You need to mobilise your supra-national organisations into a force that can mitigate the push factors like poverty and lack of economic opportunity in the source countries. If the push factors can be mitigated in the so called originating countries, and if the allure of the receiving countries can be de-mythologised then much can be accomplished to combat trafficking. Religious organisations have an expansive network that has a global reach and that network needs to be activated and mobilised in a common cause.

In addition to mobilising our supra-national networks in the fight against trafficking, I believe the religious community has a very important role to play in combating trafficking - specifically this can be accomplished through:

1) Advocacy - looking closely at the anti-trafficking legislation and making concrete proposals to strengthen it - in South Africa and in the region;
2) Providing support to the victims of trafficking. The language used by the Protocol, regarding protection of victim's rights, is less stringent than the language used concerning the criminalisation of trafficking. The Palermo Protocol says that states must consider implementing measures to support victims. In this sense the Protocol recognises the limits on state resources and advances the notion that states in cooperation with non-governmental organisations (NGOs), states should make provision for housing, counselling and information, medical assistance, and job provision for victims of trafficking.
3) Assisting with the repatriation of victims as envisaged by the Protocol.
4) Popularising the language, the spirit and the intention of the Palermo Protocol by undertaking an educational and consciousness-raising campaign regarding trafficking in persons.
5) Using the temples, synagogues and mosques to spread the anti-trafficking message.
6) Ensuring that trafficking is not conflated with prostitution and the sex trade, for there are many other reasons for trafficking in people including forced labour.
7) Distinguishing trafficking from related issues such as forced labour, people smuggling or migration. But a note of caution, if the overall objective is to combat human rights abuses is this even a useful debate to entertain?
8) Working in partnership with other non-state actors within a nation state and across states in a concerted drive to abolish human trafficking.
9) Recognising that trafficking in human beings is global and therefore advocating for inter-state cooperation including harmonisation of legislation, enforcement, sharing of information, reciprocal training of immigration and border officials and law enforcement officials is critical.
10) Being careful with the collection and use of data on trafficking - incomplete, inaccurate, inflated or underestimated data on the numbers of people being trafficked nationally, regionally and globally can have a detrimental impact on the formulation of effective policies to combat trafficking.

Trafficking in persons is antithetical to all that defines us as human, it commodifies the person. And the trafficker, the trafficked person and the beneficiary of the labour of the trafficked person are all stripped of their humanity and their dignity. Trafficking cannot be justified and all of us have a moral, ethical and legal responsibility to eradicate every last vestige of what can only be regarded as one of the most flagrant violations of the rights of human beings. And I hope the few suggestions I have made about what the religious communities in our country and globally can do to combat trafficking, resonate with all of you.

Thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency
3 October 2007