Locked in transit: girls inside the gates of child sex trafficking in South Africa

Abstract

Despite the growing prevalence and awareness of child sex trafficking within the South African context, knowledge of the trade remains rudimentary. In this study, an exploration of how girl survivors of child sex trafficking within South Africa construct their experiences is provided. Participants included five girl children between the ages of 11 and 17, all of whom had been trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and managed to escape the trade. All of them were living in a safe house in Pretoria at the time of the interviews. One participant was trafficked into South Africa from Zimbabwe, one from the DRC, one from Lesotho, and two participants were trafficked within South African borders. An ecosystemic framework was suggested to create meaning of the findings, placing emphasis on how participants construct their experiences in terms of the ecological context. Research results reveal a significant difference in the ability of participants to overcome their experiences based on whether they had at least one supportive person from their ecological context before being trafficked. The findings of this study call for interventions to extend beyond the legislative arena. Rather, the legislative arena is seen as one aspect of the entire ecological context of girl children who are vulnerable to human trafficking. This sounds a call for interventions against human trafficking to take a more holistic view and to punctuate at the level of the family system and of the community.