Two KwaDukuza residents were arrested last week after an orphaned 14-year-old girl from KwaDukuza was reportedly sold for R30 000.
She was forced to marry a pensioner from Port Elizabeth.
The girl’s uncle and a woman were arrested in KwaDukuza last Monday by the Hawks.
They appeared in court last week and were released on R1500 bail.
They are due to appear again on November 3, along with the 61-year-old man who ‘bought’ the underage bride.
According to Hawks spokesperson Captain Anelisa Feni, the teenager’s parents died in 2015, leaving her in the care of an uncle in KwaDukuza.
The Hawks believe the uncle then sold her to the Port Elizabeth man last September for R30 000.
“After lobola was paid, the young girl was sent to Port Elizabeth where the pensioner lives.
“It is alleged that the two lived together from September 2016 to April 2017. It is further alleged that the man sexually abused her during this period and forced her to act as a wife to him,” said Captain Feni.
Feni said he was arrested for trafficking in persons in March this year and released on R5000 bail.
The ukuthwala tradition is known to be used as a cover for the abduction and forced marriages of young girls in rural parts of South Africa, mainly in the Eastern Cape and KZN.
The girls who fall victim to the tradition are usually under-aged and there are reports of girls as young as eight years old being forcefully married and raped.
Reports from 2009 suggested that more than 20 Eastern Cape girls were forced to drop out of school every month because of ukuthwala.
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