The Western Cape has its first human trafficking conviction, with the State demanding a life sentence.
Magistrate Ruth Jakuja on Thursday found Vukani Shembe, 36, guilty of human trafficking and rape.
Jakuja is to sentence him on Monday in the Mitchells Plain Magistrate’s Court.
On Thursday, Shembe asked Jakuja to consider his personal circumstances in sentencing.
He requested that the court keep in mind his age, his three children and that he had been in custody for two years.
But prosecutor Mornay Julius argued that the minimum sentence for rape and human trafficking was life imprisonment and said that “because of the seriousness of the offences, the accused should not be treated leniently”.
In April 2010, Shembe lured a 20-year-old woman from Swaziland to SA with the promise of a job.
Instead he raped her several times over several months.
On Wednesday, Shembe’s lawyer, Thuso Matseme, said the woman had not been forced to go to SA to work and that she had had a choice about moving here.
Matseme said the woman saw the job offer as an opportunity to run away from her home. “When she got to South Africa, she had to put up with Shembe’s drinking every day and she didn’t get the job as promised.
“Crying rape was her only way out,” said Matseme.
But Julius disagreed and argued that the woman had been brought to SA against her will and that she had been alienated and forced to lose contact with her family. - Cape Times