Trafficked teens to return home
The factory owner was arrested and released on bail.
Gauteng Department of Social Development (GDSD) social workers are repatriating eight teenage boys from Mozambique back home.
The police found the eight during a raid initiated by the Department of Labour and Employment after it received information that a factory in Nigel employed children and undocumented foreign nationals in January this year.
The children, aged between 13 and 17, were placed at the Mary Moodley Child and Youth Care Centre in Benoni.
The GDSD runs the centre. Opened against the owner of an electrical supply company in Nigel was a case of child labour, poor working conditions, and employing undocumented minors.
After an inquiry, the Children’s Court in Nigel confirmed the teens’ placement at the Department of Safety.
Social workers interviewed them, and the teens told them they are Mozambican nationals from Gaza Province in Xaixai, Nbacunte Village.
They said that after being recruited by the Nigel company driver in Mozambique, they came to SA on January 15 in a taxi with about 14 other boys from their village.
The taxi driver was reported to have come from the same village and asked young men and families if they were interested in working in Johannesburg. He told the recruits and family members that there was no need for passports or documents.
Relieving their story to the GDSD’s communication team, they said a minibus drove around their village, asking for those who wanted to go to SA for better opportunities.
According to the trafficked victims, inside the minibus were other children of their age who had iPhones and wore expensive sneakers, convincing them to come with them.
On Tuesday, the social workers managing the case went back to the Children’s Court in Nigel to seek permission from the court to release them from their place of safety and allow the GDSD to repatriate them and hand them over to their counterparts in Mozambique, who will then reunify the children with their parents.
This was made possible after the Mozambican consulate issued them temporary travel documents and allowed a care-to-care process between the social development departments in the two countries.
The Department of Social Development and International Social Workers Services facilitated this. The children will be handed to social workers at the Komatipoort Border Post.
Baby Makhumisani, a social work manager from the department’s Nigel office, says repatriation of the children will also spotlight the problem of child trafficking as part of Child Protection Week awareness.
“The children are happy, and we are happy as a team because we managed to complete the matter,” said Makhumisani.
“These children, who were placed in our institutions, were no longer happy since there was a language barrier. Sometimes, social workers would receive calls from institutions complaining they refuse to eat their food”.
Despite receiving new sneakers from the institutions, their hearts were no longer there because they wanted to reunite with their families in Mozambique.
However, after the magistrate allowed repatriation, the elder one opened up and complimented the social workers for their excellent work.
“At last, I am happy I am returning to my family because the man who brought us here in SA lied to us. Everything he promised us was a lie”, he said.
“It is not like we are starving where we come from. We intended to work while studying and were going to buy ourselves Air Force sneakers and iPhones, but to our surprise, we were locked in a hall where we worked day and night. Instead, they paid us R75 a day, and they would open for us only on Sunday to buy ourselves food and toiletries. And one thing about SA is that it is cold, and we did not have warm clothes, but thanks to the social workers, who got us warm clothes.”
Another boy, who cannot be named to protect his identity, says he was worried about his mother because she did not know he was trafficked to SA.
“I was doing standard six, and this year, I was supposed to do standard seven from January, but we were already in SA. I did not have a chance. I got into the taxi that day because those boys wore expensive sneakers and carried iPhones, and I knew my mother could not afford them. I am happy because, at last, I will reunite with my family after such a long time. I will come back to SA, but as a responsible person with legal papers,” he said.
The factory owner was arrested and released on bail.
The factory still operates.
