Trafficked Persons
These are the ‘victims,’44 all the women and children and men who are deceived, transported
and delivered into the hands of those who exploit them for profit. The complexity of actors
and dynamics of the human trafficking markets is also the key factor that make trafficking
so difficult to detect and combat, and which makes victims so difficult to identify and assist.
Victims of trafficking can be male or female, of varying age groups, coming from different
backgrounds, and targeted for different purposes.
Trafficked victims are either coerced or deceived into a trafficking situation depending on
the explanatory factors at play. Broadly, poverty,45 war, lack of information, gender imbalances
and a high level of demand for cheap labor and sexual services put a certain demographics
at higher risks of being trafficked. Women and children happen to be the main component
of this group.
The situation of children in domestic service has received some attention in South Africa,
therefore more information is available on this group of trafficked persons. Children in
domestic service often “work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. In addition to doing
housework some of them were also expected to do other work such as work in the employer’s
shop, take care of an elderly person or disabled child or perform work for members of the
extended families.”46 Anecdotal evidence suggests further that “some children are even held
captive where they work, and some are reportedly subject to sexual violence.”47 In addition
to these conditions, child domestic workers can also experience the following circumstances
at their places of employment:48
Accommodation
They lack privacy.
Most do not have appropriate and separate accommodation.
Some have accommodation in sheds in the backyard, with no access to separate access
to bathrooms or toilets.
Sleeping arrangements
Some sleep in garages together with other children and adult employees.