Cablegate: Pretoria Inputs to the 2010 Trafficking in Persons
VZCZCXRO1658
RR RUEHDU RUEHJO
DE RUEHSA #0290/01 0421254
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 111254Z FEB 10 ZDK
FM AMEMBASSY PRETORIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1192
INFO RUEHUJA/AMEMBASSY ABUJA 0009
RUEHBK/AMEMBASSY BANGKOK 0543
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 1071
RUEHSB/AMEMBASSY HARARE 0010
RUEHTO/AMEMBASSY MAPUTO 6246
RUEHMO/AMEMBASSY MOSCOW 1067
RUEHTN/AMCONSUL CAPE TOWN 7560
RUEHDU/AMCONSUL DURBAN 1624
RUEHJO/AMCONSUL JOHANNESBURG 9913
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHINGTON DC
RHMFIUU/DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY WASHINGTON DC
RUEAWJC/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 09 PRETORIA 000290
SIPDIS
SENSITIVE
DEPT FOR AF/S, AF/RSA; G/TIP FOR STEPHANIE KRONENBURG;
G-LAURA PENA, INL, DRL, PRM
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL SF KTIP KCRM PHUM KWMN SMIG KFRD
ASEC, PREF, ELAB, KMCA
SUBJECT: PRETORIA INPUTS TO THE 2010 TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
(TIP) REPORT -- PART 2 OF 3
REF: A. STATE 02094
B. PRETORIA 1551
C. PRETORIA 2016
D. PRETORIA 2229
E. PRETORIA 2567
F. PRETORIA 2671
PRETORIA 00000290 001.2 OF 009
(Text of paragraph 9 continues from the "Part 1" cable.)
In December, private security officers at a gold mine in
Barberton rounded up and handed over to police 260 illegal
diggers, mainly undocumented Zimbabwean and Mozambicans
working for organized criminal syndicates. About a third
were young teen minors, who were mostly paid laborers but who
in some cases were brutally coerced to work as mine robbers.
The under-age victims were held at a police station pending a
court hearing, but the mining company welcomed IOM assistance
to ensure proper intervention in future by social workers and
ILO assistance to prevent further cases of child labor.
Prosecutions listed in last year's report were continuing at
year-end 2009. In the high profile case of accused
Mozambican Aldina dos Santos (aka "Diana"), IOM sources
report that the prosecution had completed its arguments, and
witnesses had been given leave to return home.
Past examples of convictions of both recruiters and employers
of TIP victims include recruiter Amien Andrews, sentenced to
17 years in 1996, and still in jail; and brothel boss
Elizabeth Maswanganye, who lured women and exploited them,
sentenced to 5 years in 2006, and still in jail.
-- F. On behalf of NPA/SOCA, the IOM and other experts from
the academic and NGO communities continued to provide
extensive specialized counter-trafficking training to
officials from an array of government agencies, from law
enforcement to immigration officers to social workers, plus
representatives of NGOs, advocacy organizations, and the
media. Training material encompassed the definition of
trafficking, as distinct from smuggling; identification
criteria; legal frameworks; and roles of various government
departments and community actors. The table below summarizes
the over 800 SAG attendees of EC-funded IOM anti-TIP
workshops during the calendar year 2009:
--------------------------------------------- ---
IOM Counter-Trafficking Training Attendees
January - December 2009
--------------------------------------------- ---
- Dept. of Social Development and NGOs: 175
- South African Police Service (SAPS): 146
- Dept. of Home Affairs / border officers: 144
- Department of Labor: 120
- National Prosecuting Authority: 90
- Judicial officials: 50
- Department of Health: 36
- Dept. of Education: 20
- Other various departments: 31
--------------------------------------------- ---
Total: 812 SAG employees trained against TIP
--------------------------------------------- ---
These SAG attendees are in addition to 398 members of mixed
groups of NGOs, faith-based organizations, field workers, and
even 30 visitors from Swaziland's intersectoral task force.
IOM/SAG workshops will continue through 2010, emphasizing
coordinated responses across government agencies, NGOs, and
Qcoordinated responses across government agencies, NGOs, and
the public. After an intensive five-day IOM course, 78
representatives of SAPS (26), DSD (26), DoH (14), DHA (5) and
other government agencies (7) were certified as TIP trainers
by conducting onward two-day courses in their agencies.
Advanced training was provided to 52 practitioners from SAPS
PRETORIA 00000290 002.2 OF 009
(14), DHA (8), SADOL (8), DoH (7), NGOs (6), NPA (5), DSD
(3), and DoJ (1). IOM's curriculum is being reviewed for SAG
accreditation in 2010 and institutionalized roll-out across
the SAG thereafter.
Susan Kreston, children's rights advocate and guest lecturer
at the University of the Free State, gave anti-TIP training
at USG/State-funded workshops in May and September-October,
to about 700 attendees in seven major cities. There were
about 250 participants at the May annual meeting of the South
African Professional Society on the Abuse of Children
(SAPSAC), where TIP was the primary theme of the 2009
conference (and will be again in 2010). The keynote speaker
at the SAPSAC event was author and journalist Ben Skinner,
who visited South Africa at the same time as the G/TIP
Ambassador during the reporting period and wrote a Time
magazine feature about TIP in South Africa.
-- G. There was little, if any, cross-border law enforcement
cooperation on TIP between the SAG and neighboring countries,
although DSD and IOM did assist in victims' repatriation. As
noted above, initiation of regional joint efforts against TIP
was a goal of the NPA's Inter-Sectoral Task Team, and EC
funding was applied to enable cross-border data sharing for
TIP monitoring. The SAPS noted a particular focus on
cooperation with authorities of Mozambique, the land border
experiencing the highest traffic in contraband goods as well
as TIP.
-- H. Neither Post nor the SAPS trafficking desk is aware of
any extraditions by South Africa to other countries to face
TIP charges, nor of any requests by other nations for such
extraditions.
-- I. Post has no evidence of official SAG involvement in
TIP or institutional tolerance of TIP. Some individuals in
immigration or other law enforcement areas may have corrupt
dealings with traffickers, however, as detailed below.
-- J. Until 2009 no SAG officials were known to have been
prosecuted for involvement in TIP. This year, however, press
reports indicated that DHA officials had been arrested (month
not specified) in the 2006 "After Dark" case in Durban for
facilitating the movement of Thai victims into South Africa.
In two ongoing cases (one in Durban, and the other in
Rustenberg) police officers were said to be implicated as
complicit with trafficking consortia. IOM reported receiving
tip-offs from trafficking insiders who would not trust local
police, whom they believed were collaborators with criminals.
Interlocutors often commented anecdotally that police
commonly patronized brothels and were inclined to look the
other way on TIP, while border officials were widely
considered to accept bribes as a matter of routine.
A multinational anti-TIP team at Johannesburg International
Airport expressed frustration that corruption did occur among
DHA immigration officials apparently bribed by traffickers to
overlook TIP. Given long delays in investigations and low
likelihood of successful prosecution, punishment was limited
Qlikelihood of successful prosecution, punishment was limited
to dismissal of suspected employees. Further, strong trade
unions blocked the permanent barring of such employees from
future airport work, raising the prospect of recycling of
offenders.
-- K. The South African Defense Forces provided troops to
peacekeeping units deployed abroad, primarily on the African
continent. While our interviewees were aware of crimes
committed by these troops, none were TIP-related.
-- L. South Africa did have a problem of child sex tourism,
particularly in its most popular destination of Cape Town.
While post had no hard data on offenders, anecdotally we were
told that client perpetrators are largely from Europe (e.g.
UK, Germany, Holland) and even the U.S., with exploitative
PRETORIA 00000290 003.2 OF 009
activities occuring primarily in rented holiday apartments.
The amended SOA expressly provided for the exercise of South
Africa's laws outside its territories (extraterritoriality).
No one to date had been prosecuted under these
extraterritorial provisions.
--------------------------------
Victim Protection and Assistance
--------------------------------
10. (Responses to paragraph 28 of Ref A.)
-- A. Recent legislation provided specific protections to
TIP victims. The amended SOA stipulated that TIP victims
were not to be charged with crimes -- such as immigration
violations or prostitution -- which were the direct result of
their having been trafficked. Following extensive awareness
and sensitivity training conducted by the UNODC, IOM, and
others, police action toward TIP victims was said to be
gradually more in line with this policy.
Both the SOA and the amended Children's Act of 2007 (yet to
be fully implemented), committed the SAG to victims'
assistance in terms of places of safety, medical aid, and
legal support. In practice, the SAG did abide by these
commitments, although provision of these services was uneven,
and lacking most in rural areas. The Children's Act would
give extra legal protection to vulnerable children,
especially those living and working on the street, children
with disabilities, and children affected by the HIV pandemic.
This Act further included a requirement for planning at
national and provincial levels and uniform roll-out of
services.
South Africa was a strong participant in the "Towards the
Elimination of Child Labor" (TECL) project funded by the U.S.
Department of Labor and implemented by the IOL. Under TECL's
auspices, the SAG drafted a Child Labor Plan of Action (CLPA)
comprising hundreds of measures to combat and prevent child
labor, including in its worst forms like trafficking. The
TECL grant was moving forward in South Africa, but ILO would
not know the extent of its effectiveness until a (planned)
government report on the status of child labor provisions was
released. SADOL remained the lead agency and noted that many
of the measures had been incorporated into SAG departments'
planning. TECL and SADOL created a second "CLPA-II" for
2008-12 that was adopted by Cabinet in February 2009. The
CLPA-II was to be used as a monitoring tool whereby each SAG
department would track its progress on a bi-monthly basis.
SADOL was expected to compile a final report and submit it to
Parliament at the end of March 2010.
-- B. South Africa had a wide array of care shelters for
victims of domestic abuse, gender-based violence, rape, and
sexual assault. Although there were no specialized
facilities specifically targeted to TIP victims, trafficked
persons could access any of those other shelters. Due to the
extremely high prevalence of those crimes (e.g. a rape rate
higher than any other country not at war), assistance and
care services were well established, albeit at insufficient
Qcare services were well established, albeit at insufficient
capacity. Facilities were mainly run by NGOs, faith-based
organizations (FBOs) and community charities, in coordination
with the Department of Social Development (DSD). As the only
body formally authorized by judicial authorities to refer
crime victims to private shelters, the DSD was required
always to be involved in each case, even though it contracted
with private entities to furnish shelter and care. The DSD's
Victim Empowerment Directorate conducted a five-year review
of its 2004 'shelter strategy,' updating accreditation
procedures, promoting more uniform standards of care, and
boosting direct funding to its network of service providers.
This review is anticipated to be complete in March 2010.
Foreign victims had equal access to these shelters, with
PRETORIA 00000290 004.2 OF 009
South Africans. Shelters segregated women from men, for whom
few facilities exist since men comprise a small fraction of
victims. Children under 16 years of age, who were thought to
make up over half of TIP victims, were cared for in dedicated
and specialized facilities, with stringent requirements on
accompaniment and monitoring by social workers.
In a 2007 State/DRL-funded project to prompt awareness and
collaboration among care providers to TIP victims in the
inner city of Johannesburg, local NGO Khulisa found that many
shelters had assisted TIP victims without identifying them as
such, i.e. addressing and healing abuse without recognizing
signs of trafficking. In more developed provinces like
Gauteng and Western Cape, Khulisa found (after probing) that
about two thirds of organizations surveyed did in fact deal
with victims of human trafficking; this figure was 57 percent
in Mpumalanga province bordering Mozambique and 40 percent in
Limpopo bordering Zimbabwe.
In addition to DSD's networks of affiliated private shelters,
the SAG had established a network of Thuthuzela Care Centers
(TCCs), essentially crisis centers to assist victims of rape
and sexual violence. The TCC model was an integrated
"one-stop shop" addressing victims' medical, legal, and
social needs, and coordinating the services of SAG
Departments of Health, Justice, and Social Development. TCCs
were not shelters -- they were not designed for victims to
stay overnight, although they could refer victims to NGOs
that did offer shelter. Under the leadership of NPA/SOCA, 52
centers were due for completion by 2011 -- 23 of them funded
by an $11.7 million contract awarded by USAID under the
Women's Justice and Empowerment Initiative, and the other 12
by UNICEF. The ultimate goal was a total of 80 TCCs
nationwide. USAID estimated in 2008 that the TCCs already
served approximately 20 percent of all victims of rape and
sexual offences. Further, UNODC funding of $18 million had
been committed to the DSD's Victim Empowerment Unit to build
a national network of victim drop-in centers.
Because TIP victims were assisted through the same channels
as victims of other types of violence and abuse, and in many
cases not necessarily identified as TIP victims per se, the
SAG did not have figures for amounts spent specifically
assisting TIP victims. DSD officials did share their concern
that 2009 budgets were woefully inadequate to meet the
standards of victim assistance stipulated by the Children's
Act and TIP Bill. In the case of TCCs, which were
collaborative efforts across multiple SAG departments, each
of the partners bore the costs for the services it
contributed -- Department of Health for medical care,
Department of Justice for legal aid, and DSD for counseling.
-- C. As noted, the SAG did provide TIP victims with legal,
medical, and counseling services. All TCCs, for instance,
were staffed by doctors, forensic nurses, social workers, and
Qwere staffed by doctors, forensic nurses, social workers, and
satellite NGOs providing psycho-social help. Subcontracted
services, such as for overnight shelter, were funded by DSD,
albeit at tiny levels of subsidy. (The Saartjie Baartman
Centre said it received funding in 2008 equivalent to $100 a
month for every child in its care, and $300 a month per adult
woman.) According to DSD, victims' assistance funding was
allocated in a cascade fashion, parceled from national
government to departments and then to provinces, where the
funding was spent by a combination of provincial and local
authorities. Foreign victims often did not avail themselves
of counseling or legal aid, instead preferring only critical
medical services followed by repatriation at the earliest
opportunity.
-- D. As noted, the SOA provided TIP victims with relief
from criminal prosecution or deportation. Foreign victims
are allowed to remain in the country temporarily to receive
assistance and to assist law enforcement investigations.
PRETORIA 00000290 005.2 OF 009
-- E. The SAG did not provide long-term shelter or housing
to TIP victims; its programs were meant to be emergency
response and transitional towards reintegration to normal
life. An exception was the case of foreign victims who
agreed to remain in South Africa in witness protection
programs while awaiting the trial of their traffickers. This
was uncommon, since most victims wanted to return to their
home countries as quickly as possible, and the trial wait
could extend for several years in South Africa's very slow
judicial process.
-- F. DSD, SAPS, and private shelters collaborated in
attending to victims when TIP situations come to light. A
social worker could be approached by an escaped victim, or
called by a church shelter; or police could rescue a victim
in the course of a raid; or an alert call could come through
the IOM TIP hotline. In any of these cases, DSD and SAPS
notified each other to enable rapid care as well as effective
gathering of evidence and testimony. DSD was the only agency
then authorized to refer victims to registered private
shelters, and to monitor their care, prepare them for court,
and accompany them through trial and/or repatriation stages.
DSD aimed to have social workers on call, nationwide, 24x7,
to respond to new cases, but if a social worker could not be
contacted the SAPS were also authorized to place victims in
temporary overnight shelter care rather than housing them in
police custody. These protocols were developed by the
NPA/SOCA-led interagency task team awaiting the enactment of
the TIP law.
-- G. Until passage of the TIP law, TIP victims continued to
be categorized with other victims of rape, domestic abuse,
and gender based violence. As a result, there were no
available statistics of TIP victims assisted during the
reporting period, as these numbers were subsumed within much
larger headings. Even after the law is passed, lack of
recognition of trafficking victims, even among social
workers, will contribute to the absence of statistics or even
estimates of numbers of victims assisted.
-- H. NPA-contracted IOM training to police, immigration and
border officials, and social workers included instruction in
the identification of TIP victims among sex workers,
laborers, travelers, and victims of abuse. The Thai
Embassy's TIP officer described how SAPS alerted the Embassy
and IOM in advance of raiding a brothel holding suspected
Thai victims. With Embassy translation, IOM then conducted
screening interviews with those persons found, in order to
distinguish trafficking victims from voluntary prostitutes.
-- I. Historically, TIP victims were often charged with
offenses like prostitution or immigration violations, and
foreign victims were generally quickly deported without
medical attention, legal assistance, or counseling care. The
SOA has since provided protections from prosecution of
victims for crimes committed under TIP coercion. Police were
Qvictims for crimes committed under TIP coercion. Police were
also trained to protect rather than punish victims. Although
police action towards TIP victims was gradually more in line
with this policy, IOM lamented this year that improvements
were not uniform: arrests of victims still occurred, and in
one case the victim was locked in the same cell with the
alleged trafficker. IOM's perception was that the SAPS'
longstanding focus on deportation of undocumented migrants
tended to overshadow attentiveness to potential TIP. Until
the TIP Bill became a formal law, TIP would continue to be
seen by some as a somewhat theoretical crime.
-- J. Victims could seek legal action against traffickers,
but despite SAG encouragement to TIP victims to do so the
vast majority preferred to return home without pressing
charges, according to the SAPS and NPA. No statistic was
available on the exact number of victims willing to testify,
but the volume of new TIP cases opened was an indicator that
the number was small. Durban SAPS sources said seven victims
PRETORIA 00000290 006.2 OF 009
were in witness protection programs at year-end in Durban's
province of Kwa Zulu Natal (KZN) alone. South Africa's
witness protection and child witness support programs were
well developed and world class, but were seen as
underutilized yet on TIP.
For those victims who remained in South Africa, those who
were citizens or otherwise entitled to work could naturally
seek new employment while a court case was pending. Some
shelters offered basic trade skills training, and IOM
provided small seed capital for repatriated adult victims to
launch new legal livelihoods in their home countries. In the
case of child victims, IOM undertook the tracing of victims'
families through its offices in countries of origin, a
process that normally lasted a few months, while the children
remained under DSD supervised shelter.
-- K. As noted earlier, the SAG conducted extensive
interagency training on TIP, including procedures for victim
identification and assistance. IOM told TIP officer that DHA
had requested supplemental training targeted to its consular
officers going abroad, but Post is not aware of any cases in
the reporting period of such assistance by South African
diplomatic missions. Typically repatriation of South African
victims was mediated by the IOM in both countries.
-- L. Post was not aware of any requests for SAG assistance
by repatriated South African victims, nor of any mechanism
for its provision, other than through the mediation of IOM.
-- M. IOM was the main international organization assisting
TIP victims in South Africa -- advising the SAG on policy,
serving as a member of the NPA/SOCA's Inter-Sectoral Task
Team on TIP, running a national TIP phone hotline, conducting
screening interviews to identify TIP victims, directly
facilitating the provision of shelter, and arranging returns
of foreign nationals. These areas of victim assistance were
alongside the IOM's extensive training of SAG officials,
research on TIP, development of a national curriculum, and
production of informational materials and participation in
awareness-raising campaigns. IOM said its working
relationship with NPA/SOCA, DSD, and other SAG officials was
close, although capacity constraints within the NPA/SOCA's
TIP unit had created a habit of dependency on outsiders (IOM,
EC, UNODC, ILO, et al) and a frustratingly slow pace of
progress.
----------
Prevention
----------
11. (Responses to paragraph 29 of Ref A.)
-- A. The SAG, IOM, and NGOs continued national
awareness-raising activities. Countertrafficking posters and
brochures in six languages were distributed in local towns
during IOM's training workshops, publicizing the IOM's
toll-free helpline. The fourth annual Human Trafficking
Awareness Week alerted the public to the TIP threat and
promoted the IOM's TIP helpline. Aside from community
workshops, IOM ran a series of 'indaba' style traditional
village counsels with tribal leaders, specifically targeting
Qvillage counsels with tribal leaders, specifically targeting
potential TIP victims in rural communities.
Although IOM had the lead role in coordinating the SAG's
EC-funded anti-TIP training and curriculum development,
myriad private initiatives were also ongoing. A Catholic
nuns' group drafted a school curriculum. In inner city areas
of Johannesburg, local NGO Khulisa educated communities to
detect trafficking and created "referral map" posters for
citizens to contact authorities. Khulisa also developed a
child-friendly kit for elementary school teachers to use with
their students. The Alliance of Christians Against
Trafficking (ACT) conducted scenario-based "Traffic Proof"
PRETORIA 00000290 007.2 OF 009
seminars in churches, schools, and community halls to
sensitize audiences to signs of TIP, ending with mnemonic
games to help the public memorize the TIP helpline number
0800-555-9999. World Hope South Africa taught
train-the-trainers workshops to build outreach capacity of a
network of NGOs.
Looking ahead to South Africa's hosting of the 2010 FIFA
World Cup of football, much of the concern about potential
TIP was focused on minors, whose schools would be closed on
an extended holiday to reduce traffic congestion during the
games, and who were expected to flock to game sites and
public fan parks where they could be vulnerable to kidnap or
exploitation. The DSD's Victim Empowerment Directorate had
drafted a national Child Protection Strategy, that it
reported it had tested successfully during the 2009
Confederations Cup (precursor to World Cup). DSD then tasked
each province that would host a World Cup match with writing
its own local plan. NGO sources said these provincial plans
were beginning to emerge in early 2010.
Civil society organizations were important partners in the
2010 anti-TIP efforts. In collaboration with FIFA, a
consortium of civil society groups -- UNICEF, National
Association of Child Care Workers (NACCW), Childline, Child
Welfare, Nelson Mandela Children's Fund (NMCF), and others --
had formed to prepare plans for "child friendly spaces"
during the soccer games. Each of the soccer cities was
assigned to an NGO as the lead agency to coordinate
protection efforts (e.g. Polokwane to Childline, Soweto to
World Vision, etc.). Volunteers, from child care workers to
girl guides (equivalent of U.S. girl scouts), would help to
supervise.
In December the NMCF launched the "Champions for Children
Campaign: 2010 and Beyond" to raise awareness of risks to
minors and promote child protection. The publicity campaign
would feature South Africans from all walks of life, from
former first lady Graca Machel (Mandela's wife) to a school
principal to a township grandmother. Childline's 24-hour
toll-free hotline for reporting child abuse would be
advertised nationally before, during, and after the World Cup.
In Pretoria, the Tshwane Leadership Foundation had formulated
a plan to raise awareness throughout downtown areas, walking
the city grid block by block to target caretakers of
buildings, budget hotels, hair salons, taverns, and shopping
centers. The group was flagging suspicious activities (e.g.
persons milling around entries to ostensibly unused
buildings), had befriended street prostitutes for
information, and had identified locations which could be
dangerous for kids during the games. In Cape Town, child
protection NGO Molo Songololo had similarly mapped potential
hotspots and planned to deploy social workers to watch out
for kids. In Durban, the YMCA and municipality planned to
run "Y-zones" where youth could partake in sports, enroll in
life skill classes, or get academic assistance.
Qlife skill classes, or get academic assistance.
The Salvation Army was planning to mount big-screen football
broadcasts in churches, where teachers would also conduct
classes over the extended school break during the games, and
lay people were being trained to supervise kids' clubs and
youth programs. Having identified particular "party streets"
where youth might fall prey to traffickers, volunteers would
be present to keep a watchful eye, talk to youth, and try to
keep girls and boys safe. On January 27, the Salvation Army
launched a new hotline number, 0800-RESCUE, to assist TIP
victims and receive tip-offs on trafficking. The line would
be staffed by speakers of all 11 South African national
languages. Contact was possible visa phone, fax, mail, or
mobile phone text messaging. The number would be added to
South African Police posters and materials.
See paragraph 15 below for more detail on the plans of the
PRETORIA 00000290 008.2 OF 009
Alliance of Christians against Trafficking (ACT) to recruit
several thousand volunteers from abroad to help protect
children around game events.
Cape Town Tourism, a SAG-funded destination marketing
organization which also sits on a World Trade Organization
(WTO) board for the protection of children in tourism, had
proposed that Cape Town act as pilot site for the roll-out of
"the Code" against child sex tourism (detailed in paragraph
14 below).
-- B. The SAG monitored physical flows of persons at ports
of entry, screening for behavior patterns indicative of TIP.
The multinational South African Immigration Liason (SAIL)
Team at Johannesburg Airport, for example, observed and
interviewed passengers leaving the country, alert to signs of
TIP, such as adults traveling with children evidently not
their own. Other suspicious signs included one-way tickets,
same-day ticket purchase, unaccompanied minors, ignorance of
final destination, or travel rationales which did not appear
to be bona fide. TIP detection was mainly a matter of
pattern identification over time -- e.g. a suspect traveling
repeatedly in varied company for no clear reason in a short
period of time. Before boarding, flight data was mined for
known suspects by comparing it against data bases of persons
of concern. Because sufficient evidence took a long time to
collect, and prosecution of offenders was a slim prospect as
they could switch modes of operation, the SAIL team's primary
strategy was one of disruption of detected activity, by
screening and offloading of suspects and their potential
victims.
-- C. See paragraph 8B above for details of the NPA/SOCA-led
Inter-sectoral Task Team on TIP.
-- D. The National Action Plan was a long-running effort
that had gone through several iterations and start-overs.
The process, (re)-launched in May, had identified need areas
such as data collection into a central data base, improved
border control, public awareness, national coordination,
strategies for international events (like the World Cup),
measures against corruption, witness protection, public
education, and regional coordination. In late 2009, a new
draft was floated at a stakeholders' conference, but sources
said it was problematic -- not grounded in or making any
reference to provisions of the TIP Bill, not aligned to
budget resources, and not yet syndicated to impacted
government agencies whose support would be essential. Member
states of the regional South African Development Community
(SADC) had all committed to have such plans by in place by
2015.
-- E. Prostitution was illegal in South Africa, and so was
the purchasing of commercial sex services. As mentioned,
enforcement was often lax, given the competing priorities
generated by South Africa's exceptionally high rates of
violent crime and overstretched policing resources. The
SAG's greatest deterrence effort was its continuing arrests
and prosecutions of violators, albeit within an overburdened
Qand prosecutions of violators, albeit within an overburdened
and slow judicial system.
-- F. In March 2009 Cape Town Tourism held a small, focused,
and closed-door workshop (attended by local conoff) among
representatives of the tourism industry, government, and
civil society, to find ways to combat sex tourism. Further
efforts to deter sex tourism are described in paragraph 14
below. Such initiatives should impact the activities of
foreign tourists in South Africa, and also South Africans who
might travel abroad in future.
-- G. The South African military prosecuted its own troops
involved in sex crimes such as rape while deployed on
peacekeeping missions abroad. All troops involved in such
missions received behavior and conduct training to avert
PRETORIA 00000290 009.2 OF 009
problems of sexual abuse.
(Text continues with paragraph 12 in the "Part 3" cable.)
GIPS