North Riding fundraiser spotlights human trafficking dangers
A North Riding fundraiser has raised money for Brave to Love, an NPO that supports victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation across South Africa.
A fundraising event in North Riding brought women from across Gauteng together to raise money and awareness in support of an NPO that has spent more than a decade fighting human trafficking on South African streets.
Organised by Gauteng Provincial Legislature member Madeleine Hicklin, the gathering was at The Garden Venue and was held on an apolitical basis, with all proceeds directed to Brave to Love, a Johannesburg-based organisation working with victims of sexual exploitation and human trafficking since 2014.
The keynote address was delivered by Colonel Heila Niemand of the Family Violence Unit of the Hawks, who spoke on the scale and dangers of human trafficking in South Africa.
Emma van der Walt, the founder of Brave to Love, also addressed guests and painted a vivid picture of how the organisation grew from one woman’s curiosity into a network reaching more than 500 women across Johannesburg, Kempton Park, and Pretoria.
She recalled the moment that set everything in motion. “I wanted to find out if there were brothels in my area where I lived,” she told the gathering. “A kilometre from my house, there was a brothel and the ladies were locked up.”
That discovery led to the organisation’s first rescue, carried out without police contacts, when the team arranged an Uber to collect a seven-months-pregnant woman from the property while the pimp was away.
From those early days, Brave to Love built working relationships with law enforcement, including the SAPS Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit and the National Joint Operations.
Its case manager is a former special forces military veteran. Van der Walt told guests that 11 alleged traffickers are currently before the High Court in a case the organisation helped build, having dismantled a network operating across Springs, Benoni, Boksburg, Pretoria, and Rustenburg.
Among the stories shared was that of a young Zulu woman who was groomed at a Johannesburg casino by a man who would become her trafficker.
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He held a gun to her head and threatened to kill her and her entire family if she refused to take drugs. He then sold her, in her own words: ‘Like a bag of potatoes,’ to another pimp for R500, and she was taken to Sunnyside in Pretoria. She was later rescued through a joint operation with the police.
Brave to Love was also centrally involved in the identification and repatriation of more than 140 South African victims trafficked to Myanmar and Thailand as part of an international scam compound operation.
The process began when a mother reached Emma with a desperate call about her missing daughter, leading to months of work with NGOs, the South African embassy in Bangkok, and frontline responders on the ground.
Looking ahead, the organisation is preparing to launch the Brave Academy, a programme designed to build economic independence for survivors through small business support.
Several businesses have already been established with the organisation’s help, including a food business and a vehicle-cleaning enterprise, to reduce survivors’ vulnerability to being trafficked again.
Brave to Love’s book, which documents survivor stories, is available on Takealot and at Exclusive Books.
Those who wish to support the organisation or volunteer can follow Brave to Love on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
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