5.2 Presentation of the data pertaining to the interview questions
5.2.5 Questions 12 and 24
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The perception of most participants regarding the current legislative framework revealed comprehensive insight but lacked specificity. However, they generally agreed that limited collaboration was a problem and they agreed that all role-players should be involved through adequate legislation in combating human trafficking. This finding is anchored by Yaso (2015), who emphasises that state structures, NGOs and society should collaborate in their efforts to deal with all manner of crime.
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“There are a number of challenges we encounter but the prominent ones are the language barrier, a shortage of resources, inconsistency of legislation and inconsistent rapport between SAPS and the public. If these areas could be perfectly dealt with the problem of human trafficking could be lessened to the reasonable state. And if the state could be able to maintain border control we can work well in reducing the current problem of human trafficking.” (PO- 3)
“We are still in need of resources because some challenges prevent us as investigators from perform our tasks efficiently. The number one thing is the lack language interpreters. This becomes a challenge when we encounter a situation where victims are speaking a foreign language. It becomes a huge challenge because we are not provided with interpreters and we cannot work with the interpreters of the court. In some cases you are forced to arrest the victim because you do not even understand the language they are speaking. Furthermore, we are lacking some technological equipment to assist in the investigation process just like in other countries. The problem lies solely on the lack of resources, as well as the unstable relationship with other structures of other countries.” (PO-4)
“The lack of training the language barrier, and extradition problems hindrances involves extradition cities – others are economic trade, others are judicial – we could not have agreement on fighting crime. For an instance in Thailand being a sex worker is not a crime but here it is a criminal profession. The language barrier in some other cases is the problem.
We sometimes get to a point where we need to deal with victims from other countries that are not using English as communication language. Therefore if we encounter such case we would need the interpreter but we do not have interpreters. Also weak borders have an effect on the rise of human trafficking, because traffickers easily flee the country while some investigations are underway.” (PO-5)
In support of the above claims by the SAPS officials, anti-trafficking workers shared similar sentiments:
“Victims themselves being so fearful, not trust anyone, they don’t disclose and they do not want to do tests. Again, the language barrier is another challenge if we encounter the situation where
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we should assist the victim which is speaking the foreign language. It becomes problematic because they’d struggle to pronounce some words. And if the case needs legal mind we cannot help because we are unable to provide the victims with that.” (NGO P1)
“Social workers are not cooperating well to help us getting them examined and I don’t think they understand what these girls are going through and that’s a challenge. Intakes are challenging because mostly victims are psychologically much damaged.” (NGO P2)
“It is hard working with people who cannot trust you, because when they come here you find that they are completely confused and they cannot trust anyone, that’s the first challenge.
Secondly, we do not have sufficient resources to help the victims. You find that sometimes they would prefer going back to the traffickers.” (NGO P3)
“The first challenge is that there is no system to help detox them, in most cases they come here addicted to drugs because they are drugged. Another challenge is that you find that the victims want to leave because they are not making money, especially victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation, so they prefer going back. And we have a problem with the languages of the victims because some are speaking foreign languages so it becomes difficult communicating with them. Lastly, we have faced the problem of shortage of resources for a long time.” (NGO P4)
“They are usually admitted to the agency only to find that they are already addicted to drugs so we can’t provide them with drugs and we cannot help them detox. Another challenge is that it is not easy to refer them to rehabilitation centres as soon as possible and we do not have enough funds to send those victims to private centres. Lastly, we have the challenge in communicating with others who are using foreign languages.” (NGO P5).
The responses revealed different obstacles experienced by the SAPS and NGOs in responding to the scourge of human trafficking in the DPA. Problems encountered a lack of training, a lack of partnerships among relevant structures, the language barrier, insufficient resources, a lack of trust by the victims, poor border control, lack of trust in the NGO workers by the victims,
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drug problems, and the fact that female victims rather do sex work than live in poverty. In a similar vein, Clawson, Dutch and Cummings (2006) found, among others, challenges such as a lack of trust by the victims, inadequate training of officials, and language barriers as hindrances to effectively respond to human trafficking. Almost all the participants commented on the issue of language barriers. Geldenhuys (2017) also found that the language barrier was the biggest obstacle in policing human trafficking and that even NGOs were finding it challenging.
One participant referred to SAPS officials’ complicity in human trafficking as a challenge to the process of responding to this crime. The report by the US Department of States (2018) also reveals that some police officials are part of criminal networks, which exacerbates the problem.
It was also discovered that these NGOs are limited in the services that they can provide for the victims, as they lack financial and legal assistance. Anchoring this finding is the OSCE (2009) that states that most NGOs are unable to render the required services, particularly legal advice, financial assistance, medical care, psychological support, and job training.