Red panties hang from a windowsill, and scattered across the hotel room are colourful children’s clothing, baby lotion, cigarette lighters, Vaseline, condoms, a hair piece and a plastic toy gun.
It is one of the rooms at Inn-Town Holiday Lodge, Rochester Road, in the Durban Point area, where 16 young girls were rescued, some of whom were due to be sent to other countries for prostitution.
Empty alcohol bottles, cigarette butts, and condom wrappers litter the stairwell of the building, painted bright orange and promising luxury en-suite rooms, which can be paid for by the hour.
But inside, during a raid described by police as KwaZulu-Natal’s biggest raid against human trafficking raid, evidence has emerged of almost two years of forced prostitution, drug dealing, and of young girls, who had once hoped for a better life, being held against their will.
Durban Organised Crime Unit’s warrant officer, Cyril Freese, said room 19, in the basement of the hotel, is where the drug dealers worked from – they would give the girls heroin and send them on to the streets.
Police spokesman, Colonel Vincent Mdunge, said that the 16 girls, eight of them underage, were being held “in transit” in the brothel, and were apparently soon to be sent to other countries, either as prostitutes, or drug mules.
“After the girls receive trauma counselling, they will sign a sworn statement, and we will be able to confirm this,” he said.
In the raid on Thursday evening led by the Hawks, the Durban Organised Crime Unit, the SAPS Dog Unit, members of the Criminal Record Centre, the Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit, and metro police, four people were arrested – three men, believed to be drug dealers, and a 59-year-old woman, believed to be the manager of the hotel.
Freese said the 16 girls rescued were all aged between 12 and 18. The 12-year-old girl appeared to be several months pregnant.
Three cars and some cocaine and heroin were also confiscated from the premises.
“In June, police rescued a girl from the building and put her in a shelter. But their hopes of finding more girls and arresting those responsible soon ended when the girl ran away,” Freese said.
Two weeks ago, the Organised Crime Unit set traps in the area to find the young prostitutes, and last week bought cocaine from their captors in a police sting.
“These girls come from all over the country, and one man would come in every once in a while to pay for their rooms” Freese said.
“They were recruited with the promise of money, food, and free accommodation.”
A front-desk employee, who did not want to be named, said he had an idea as to what was going on in the building, but said he had no idea that the girls were underage. “When people come and book a room, it’s their business what they do in that room,” he said. “All sorts of men came here – young, old, even very wealthy men.”
Freese said after Thursday’s arrest, the girls were taken to hospital to detox, and then to shelters around the city where they will receive counselling. Police are still trying to track down their families.
“These girls are very young. They were being intimidated and were too afraid to try to escape,” Mdunge said.
Director of Childline KZN, Linda Naidoo, said the girls had been treated very badly.
“This type of thing will scar them for life,” she said. “This is such a concealed crime, so I’m glad they were found.”
Chairwoman of the Point Community Police Forum, Yvonne Badenhorst, said prostitution and brothels had always been a problem in the area.
“A long time ago, that building was called ‘The White House’,” she said.
The four accused appeared in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Friday and have been charged with trafficking for the purpose of prostitution, keeping a brothel, drug dealing, and for selling liquor without a licence.
They were refused bail.
The three men were taken to Westville Prison and the manager has been taken to the holding cells in the Durban Central Police Station.
The case has been adjourned to Friday.