An 18-year-old Durban woman was trafficked to Pretoria by a foreign national who promised her a job as a house sitter, but instead forced her into prostitution.
The alleged trafficker, Nigerian Emmanuel Odii, 32, was arrested in Pretoria by Durban and Joburg officers from the Hawks unit in November.
He has been charged with human trafficking and kidnapping, and was denied bail in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Friday.
The investigating officer, Warrant Officer Cyril Freese, said in an affidavit that the woman, who cannot be named, was introduced to Odii by a female relative.
The relative, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the woman, has been joined as a co-accused in the case and was arrested last week.
She was granted bail of R2 000 in the Durban Magistrate’s Court last Wednesday.
According to Freese’s affidavit, the relative told the woman that Odii needed someone to look after his flat in Pretoria, as he would be leaving the country.
The woman met him in Durban in August and was told he would pay her R300 a day to look after his flat.
On the same day, Odii travelled with the woman to Pretoria and took her to a flat.
At the flat, Odii allegedly forced her to smoke rock cocaine and threatened to take away her cellphone, her only means of communication, if she refused. After smoking the drug, Odii allegedly made the woman prostitute herself and she was picked up by a man and taken to his home.
The woman told police she could not recall what happened at the flat, because she was intoxicated by the drug.
When she returned to the flat, more drugs were forced on her and she was told by Odii that she should do as he asked, or else he would take her cellphone and no one would know where she was kept.
Thereafter, she was made to stand on the street waiting for clients and was arrested by police for prostitution.
On her release, Odii collected her and forced her to consume more drugs at his flat.
The woman, who cannot recall several events because of the drug use, then remembers being taken to a hospital in Pretoria.
She was later reunited with her family in Durban.
In October, the woman’s relatives told the Durban Organised Crime Unit of the crime and a sting operation was set up to arrest Odii. Freese said in his affidavit that despite human trafficking being a fairly new crime, it was becoming increasingly prevalent.
The modus operandi was to recruit the victims through coercion, the promise of false jobs or threats.
“Once a woman is in the trafficker’s control and custody, she is forced to take drugs and becomes addicted. She is then forced into prostitution to support the drug addiction.”
Odii claimed in his testimony for bail that the woman had gone with him to Pretoria as she was running away from police. He said the woman had told him she was a prostitute and that she had stayed with him for a few days and then returned to Durban.
Handing down judgment, magistrate K Dunn said Home Affairs Department documents showed that Odii was in the country illegally.
She said Odii had failed to show exceptional circumstances warranting his release on bail.
The matter was adjourned to February next year. - The Mercury