The Democratic Alliance (DA) showed support for victims of human trafficking and gender-based violence (GBV) by picketing outside the Kimberley Magistrates Court.
The DA’s picket coincided with the scheduled bail hearing of a man who allegedly lured women to Kimberley with the false promise of jobs, keeping them captive in a city hotel and prostituting them. He stands accused of charges of human trafficking, rape, assault, kidnapping, illegal immigration, and possession of drugs in court.
As parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents, we find it absolutely terrifying that this horrible evil of human trafficking has come so close to home. You don’t want to think about your hometown as being a safe haven for human traffickers.
The DA therefore came out today to show that human trafficking has no place in Kimberley.
We are going to need everyone on board to fix this situation and to rescue our town from the grip of criminals. And it is only the DA that can rescue Kimberley.
Firstly, we need to make sure that SAPS and specifically crime intelligence units are adequately funded and resourced. There are some good men and women who serve our communities, but they cannot do a proper job when the ANC continues to under-fund the police. While we live in fear of crime and while SAPS must struggle without necessities, the ANC wastes R3.3 billion every year on VIP-protection of politicians.
We can use that money more effectively by ensuring that crime intelligence units have the resources needed to detect crimes like human trafficking, which often go unnoticed and unreported. It is only by chance that one of the victims in this case was able to escape and go to the police – how would they otherwise have known to go to the hotel and save the other victims? How many other crimes are committed and how many other criminals never face consequences for their actions because SAPS is not adequately funded?
To rescue our communities, especially our vulnerable young women, we need to make sure that SAPS has the resources it needs.
Secondly, we need to acknowledge that human trafficking happens in an environment where people are becoming increasingly desperate for jobs. That makes it easier for traffickers to lure young people from their homes with the fake promises of jobs, only to imprison them and sell them into sexual slavery. We know that this has happened in the Northern Cape before and we have to stop it from happening again.
We can address it by rescuing the economy and making sure that there is an environment that is conducive for the sustained creation of sustainable jobs. We can stop young people from falling for fake jobs by making sure that there are enough real jobs to go around.
And, thirdly, we need to educate young people about the methods that organised crime cartels and human traffickers use. We need to teach them to be careful and cautious, especially when engaging online with strangers.
To do this requires a whole of society approach. It requires all of us working together. And it starts with us coming together, like we have done today, to say – enough is enough.