U. S. Ambas­sador to South Africa, Luis Cde­Baca warned that human traf­fick­ing could increase in the coun­try with the com­ing of the 2010 World Cup. Already within the coun­try girls are traf­ficked for sex­ual exploita­tion, while young boys are are forced into street vend­ing or food service.

From South Africa’s News 24, we read more of the ambassador’s comments.

“With the 2010 we might see an uptake of pros­ti­tu­tion and broth­els mov­ing closer to the sites… pimp­ing of chil­dren is also on the cards,” he said at a Pre­to­ria brief­ing on human trafficking.

He said 12.3 mil­lion peo­ple across the world had been vic­tims of traf­fick­ing, accord­ing to a 2008 report released in June this year.

“Most of the vic­tims were lured by traf­fick­ers offer­ing jobs, once in a for­eign coun­try they were abused and left with no protection.”

He said des­ti­tute men, women and chil­dren were kept as slaves, or worked as domes­tic work­ers or farm labour­ers, and at times were forced into pros­ti­tu­tion to earn money for their traf­fick­ers. He said law enforce­ment agen­cies need to work with civil soci­ety to com­bat human trafficking.

“Police con­cen­trate on pros­ti­tu­tion and not traf­fick­ing… these women were first vic­tims of traf­fick­ing and forced into prostitution.”

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