The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has cracked down on child trafficking after 15 children, aged between two and 10, were saved between January and March at OR Tambo International Airport.
The most recent case took place at the airport on Wednesday when Nigerian nationals made attempts to traffic three children, aged two, six and eight, who had South African passports.
“The red flag for our immigration officials was the fact that the couple were Nigerian but the children were travelling with South African papers,” said Mamokubung Moeketsi, the district manager of operations at the Ekurhuleni DHA.
Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba said Wednesday had been a tumultuous day for his department. “At the Ficksburg point of entry, together with the Hawks, we arrested 11 members of police, five department officials and three civilians who were involved in matters of fraud and corruption in immigration services,” he said.
Gigaba said that in the past month, the department had dealt with three cases involving attempted trafficking of eight children at the airport alone.
“That was as a result of the robustness of both our systems as well as officials,” he said.
In another case of attempted child trafficking, a woman was transiting through South Africa with a child who had been paid for and adopted by a Czech national.
This child transited through South Africa from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Mauritius. “The child was going to meet this ‘parent’ in Mauritius for the first time and then travel to Europe with someone they didn’t know from Adam,” Gigaba said.
Heinrich de Vos, the operational manager of immigration services at OR Tambo, said the child had transited through South Africa and made it all the way to Mauritius, only to be turned away by officials there. “Upon the lady’s return (to South Africa), we were alerted by the airline that they had picked up something suspicious in terms of the relationship between the lady and the child,” he said.
“The woman was interviewed and later it was picked up that the child was indeed being trafficked and they’re using South Africa as a transit hub, but Mauritius was the exchange place because Mauritius has direct flights and access into Europe.”
Pulane Ketlhoilwe, the acting director of immigration services at OR Tambo International, said the adoption papers provided seemed legitimate but were found to be “sinister”.
Gigaba said they would also be implementing additional safeguard measures in transit areas. “We need to plug the holes that evidently exist there. The additional safeguards would look at introducing the same requirements (for incoming and outgoing passengers) at transit level.
“So you don’t need a transit visa, but you need to produce evidence of the relationship between you and the child that you are travelling with,” he said.
Gigaba said this child was one they knew of “for now that was returned. There could be others that have been, tragically, successfully trafficked that we didn’t know about,” he said.
The department was concerned that some of the near-child trafficking incidents had involved fraudulent papers, and vowed to get to the bottom of it.
Gigaba emphasised that it was the responsibility of South Africans not to turn a blind eye to trafficking.
“All the children either originated from our neighbouring countries or were destined to be trafficked to our neighbouring countries.
“It’s the responsibility of South Africa and countries in the Southern African Development Community to fight against such crimes,” he said.
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