South Africa is being used as a destination and transit point, as well as a source for human trafficking, the International Association of Women Judges was told at a conference in Boksburg on Thursday.
Public prosecutions director, advocate Thoko Majokweni, speaking on behalf of Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla, said: "Mozambican women are trafficked to the mines and sometimes to Kwazulu-Natal.
"Malawian women are sold by Nigerian syndicates... to Germany, Italy and Belgium, and this all happens via South Africa."
She said South Africans themselves were being trafficked to Hong Kong and Macau.
"Thai women are debt-bonded in brothels in Johannesburg and in KwaZulu-Natal, especially in port areas," she said.
Chinese traffickers were using Johannesburg as a transit point for Swaziland, Lesotho and Mozambique, Majokweni said. Russian and Bulgarian women were exploited in private clubs and venues in Johannesburg.
Majokweni said reliable statistics on trafficking in southern Africa were difficult to obtain because most countries in the region had not criminalised the trafficking of people. Necessary legislative reforms were underway in South Africa to halt trafficking.
She said the SA Law Reform Commission had prioritised finalising the Combating of Trafficking in Persons Bill to make human trafficking a criminal offence in this country.
One of the key issues in the Bill was the amendment to the definition of the action of trafficking itself. In SA, the commission was adding to the definition of trafficking as "recruitment, transportation, transfer and harbouring", also the "sale, supply, capture and procurement" of people both within or across the border.
"It really needs to be transnational," said Majokweni.
She also said the issue of illegal adoption across the country had been incorporated into the bill.
Majokweni said that in the short term other legislative measures such as provisions of the Children's Act, the Sexual Offences Act and racketeering charges were being used to prosecute those involved in trafficking. However, these laws had limitations.
For example, cases tried under the Sexual Offences Act criminalised the act of trafficking in persons for sexual exploitation only.
She also said the sentences issued under these laws often did not correlate with the severity of the crime.
South Africans should remember human trafficking was new in terms of recognition but not in its existence, she said.
"You look and see the life of Sarah Baartman, who was sold into slavery in France, paraded naked for men's pleasure, and even in death didn't get any dignity because she was torn into little parts," Majokweni said.
"We do not see the chains, yet the bondage is there. We do not see the whips, yet the wounds are there."