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TO RUEHSA/AMEMBASSY PRETORIA IMMEDIATE 4787
INFO RUEHTN/AMCONSUL CAPE TOWN IMMEDIATE 7713
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RUEHJO/AMCONSUL JOHANNESBURG IMMEDIATE 6916

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 STATE 060529 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KTIP ELAB KCRM KPAO KWMN PGOV PHUM PREL SMIG SA
SUBJECT: SOUTH AFRICA -- 2009 TIP REPORT: PRESS GUIDANCE 
AND           DEMARCHE 
 
REF: (A) STATE 59732 (B) STATE 005577 
 
1.This is an action cable; see paras 5 through 7 and 10. 
 
¶2. On June 16, 2009, at 10:00 a.m. EDT, the Secretary will 
release the 2009 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report at a 
press conference in the Department's press briefing room. 
This release will receive substantial coverage in domestic 
and foreign news outlets.  Until the time of the Secretary's 
June 16 press conference, any public release of the Report or 
country narratives contained therein is prohibited. 
 
¶3. The Department is hereby providing Post with advance press 
guidance to be used on June 16 or thereafter.  Also provided 
is demarche language to be used in informing the Government 
of South Africa of its tier ranking and the TIP Report's 
imminent release.  The text of the TIP Report country 
narrative is provided, both for use in informing the 
Government of South Africa and in any local media release by 
Post's public affairs section on June 16 or thereafter. 
Drawing on information provided below in paras 8 and 9, Post 
may provide the host government with the text of the TIP 
Report narrative no earlier than 1200 noon local time Monday 
June 15 for WHA, AF, EUR, and NEA countries and OOB local 
time Tuesday June 16 for SCA and EAP posts.  Please note, 
however, that any public release of the Report's information 
should not/not precede the Secretary's release at 10:00 am 
EDT on June 16. 
 
¶4. The entire TIP Report will be available on-line at 
www.state.gov/g/tip shortly after the Secretary's June 16 
release.  Hard copies of the Report will be pouched to posts 
in all countries appearing on the Report.  The Secretary's 
statement at the June 16 press event, and the statement of 
and fielding of media questions by G/TIP,s Director and 
Senior Advisor to the Secretary, Ambassador-at-Large Luis 
CdeBaca, will be available on the Department's website 
shortly after the June 16 event.  Ambassador de Baca will 
also hold a general briefing for officials of foreign 
embassies in Washington DC on June 17 at 3:30 pm EDT. 
 
¶5. Action Request: No earlier than 12 noon local time on 
Monday June 15 for WHA, AF, EUR, and NEA posts and OOB local 
time on Tuesday June 16 for SCA and EAP posts, please inform 
the appropriate official in the Government of South Africa of 
the June 16 release of the 2009 TIP Report, drawing on the 
points in para 9 (at Post's discretion) and including the 
text of the country narrative provided in para 8.  For 
countries where the State Department has lowered the tier 
ranking, it is particularly important to advise governments 
prior to the Report being released in Washington on June 16. 
 
¶6. Action Request continued:  Please note that, for those 
countries which will not receive an "action plan" with 
specific recommendations for improvement, posts should draw 
host governments' attention to the areas for improvement 
identified in the 2009 Report, especially highlighted in the 
"Recommendations" section of the second paragraph of the 
narrative text.  This engagement is important to establishing 
the framework in which the government's performance will be 
judged for the 2010 Report.  If posts have questions about 
which governments will receive an action plan, or how they 
may follow up on the recommendations in the 2009 Report, 
please contact G/TIP and the appropriate regional bureau. 
 
¶7. Action Request continued: On June 16, please be prepared 
to answer media inquiries on the Report's release using the 
press guidance provided in para 11.  If Post wishes, a local 
press statement may be released on or after 10:30 am EDT June 
16, drawing on the press guidance and the text of the TIP 
Report's country narrative provided in para 8. 
 
¶8. Begin Final Text of South Africa,s country narrative in 
the 2009 TIP Report: 
 
-------------------------------- 
South Africa (TIER 2) 
-------------------------------- 
 
South Africa is a source, transit, and destination country 
for trafficked men, women, and children.  Children are 
largely trafficked within the country from poor rural areas 
to urban centers like Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, and 
Bloemfontein ) girls trafficked for the purposes of 
commercial sexual exploitation and domestic servitude; boys 
 
STATE 00060529  002 OF 006 
 
 
trafficked for forced street vending, food service, begging, 
crime, and agriculture; and both boys and girls trafficked 
for &muti8 (the removal of their organs for traditional 
medicine).  The tradition of &ukuthewala,8 the forced 
marriage of girls as young as 12 to adult men, is still 
practiced in remote villages in the Eastern Cape.  Local 
criminal rings and street gangs organize child prostitution 
in a number of South Africa,s cities, which are also common 
destinations for child sex tourists.  In the past, victims 
had typically been runaways who fell prey to city pimps, but 
now crime syndicates recruit victims from rural towns.  South 
African women are trafficked to Europe and the Middle East 
for domestic servitude and sexual exploitation.  Nigerian 
syndicates have reportedly begun moving trafficked women from 
South Africa to the U.S. as well for African migrant clients 
there.  Women and girls from Thailand, Congo, India, the 
People,s Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine, 
Mozambique, and Zimbabwe are trafficked to South Africa for 
commercial sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, and other 
forced work in the service sector.  Some of these women are 
trafficked onward to Europe for sexual exploitation.  A large 
number of Thai women are trafficked into South Africa,s 
illegal brothels, while Eastern European organized crime 
units force women from Russian and Ukraine into debt-bonded 
prostitution in exclusive private men's clubs.  Traffickers 
control victims through intimidation and threats, use of 
force, confiscation of travel documents, demands to pay job 
"debts," and forced use of drugs and alcohol.  Organized 
traffickers from the PRC bring victims from Lesotho, 
Mozambique, and Swaziland to Johannesburg for exploitation 
locally, or to send them on to other cities.  Men from PRC 
and Taiwan are trafficked to mobile sweatshop factories in 
Chinese urban enclaves in South Africa which evade labor 
inspectors by moving in and out of neighboring Lesotho and 
Swaziland to avoid arrest.  Young men and boys from 
Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe voluntarily migrate 
illegally to South Africa for farm work, sometimes laboring 
for months in South Africa with little or no pay and under 
conditions of involuntary servitude before unscrupulous 
employers have them arrested and deported as illegal 
immigrants. 
 
The Government of South Africa does not fully comply with the 
minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; 
however, it is making significant efforts to do so.  The 
government opened prosecutions against 16 suspected 
trafficking offenders during the year and is continuing to 
prepare for late 2009 passage and subsequent implementation 
of its comprehensive anti-trafficking law by developing 
inter-agency operating procedures and training officials on 
the law, victim identification, and agency roles.  Foreign 
victims in South Africa, however, still face inadequate 
protection from the government and sometimes are treated as 
criminals.  Labor trafficking does not receive as much 
government attention as does sex trafficking.  Moreover, 
little or no information is made available about the status 
of pending prosecutions, and the government suspended 
development of a national anti-trafficking plan of action to 
start the process anew. 
 
Recommendations for South Africa:  Pass and enact the 
Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Bill; 
implement the Children,s Amendment Act of 2007; increase 
awareness among all levels of relevant government officials 
as to their responsibilities under the trafficking provisions 
of the Sexual Offenses and Children,s Acts; support 
prevention strategies developed by NGOs to address demand for 
commercial sex acts and protect children from commercial 
sexual exploitation in advance of the 2010 World Cup; support 
the adoption of measures to protect children from sexual 
exploitation in travel and tourism; and institute formal 
procedures to regularly compile national statistics on the 
number of trafficking cases prosecuted and victims assisted, 
as is done for other crimes. 
 
Prosecution 
----------- 
The government greatly increased its law enforcement efforts 
in 2008.  Since May 2008, the government began prosecuting 
new trafficking cases under recently implemented sex offense 
laws; the court cases are on-going and no trafficking 
offenders have yet been convicted.  The South African Law 
Reform Commission (SALRC) released a first draft of 
comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation in mid-2008 for 
consultations and revisions.  The SALRC then submitted a 
report on the bill along with a second draft to the Minister 
of Justice and the parliamentary committee in November 2008. 
That draft is posted online for public commentary to close by 
June 15, 2009, in preparation for a year-end Parliamentary 
vote.  A variety of other criminal statutes, such as the 
 
STATE 00060529  003 OF 006 
 
 
Prevention of Organized Crime Act (POCA) and the Sexual 
Offenses Act (SOA), were used to prosecute trafficking 
crimes.  Law enforcement authorities could also use existing 
laws prohibiting involuntary servitude, child labor, and 
forced labor to prosecute labor trafficking cases but have 
done so in only one case.  The aforementioned laws prescribe 
sufficiently stringent penalties of up to 20 years, 
imprisonment, which are commensurate with penalties 
prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape.  During the 
past year, the government opened at least five new 
trafficking prosecutions, including two with charges under 
the newly expanded SOA, and began arresting suspects as a 
result of a separate recently-completed investigation in 
Durban.  In May 2008, the Pretoria Magistrate,s Court opened 
the trial of a Mozambican woman charged under the SOA and 
labor laws with child trafficking and forced labor for 
exploiting three Mozambican girls in prostitution and 
domestic servitude in early 2008.  The trial was interrupted 
and postponed twice in 2008 for illness and equipment 
failure, then resumed in late February 2009 when the final 
prosecution witnesses testified.  No result had been 
announced as of the drafting of this report.  Also in May 
2008, a female club owner and her adult daughter were 
arrested for forcing eight South African women into 
prostitution; the government did not provide any additional 
information on this case.   In June 2008, the government 
began prosecuting a Sierra Leone national for selling girls 
aged 8 to 12 into prostitution.   In December 2008, a 
prosecution began of five Nigerian men charged under the SOA 
for trafficking Nigerian women through South Africa.  In late 
January 2009, six Nigerians and one Tanzanian were arrested, 
and 17 South African victims rescued, in North West province. 
 In late March 2009, several top businessmen in Durban were 
arrested for involvement in a child prostitution syndicate 
and charged under the amended SOA, child protection laws, and 
pornography laws; their prosecutions are pending.  Police 
continued investigating other suspects in this case. 
Prosecutions begun in 2006 and 2007 were still before the 
courts ) no verdict has been reached in the trial of a South 
African man charged in 2006 with the forced prostitution of 
16 Thai victims, racketeering and money laundering; the trial 
of two Indian and Thai traffickers arrested in July 2007 at a 
brothel in Durban also continued.  In April 2008, a South 
African citizen and his Thai wife pled guilty to charges of 
keeping a brothel and prostitution, and both were deported to 
Thailand.  Twenty-seven Chinese female trafficking victims 
who were arrested in a brothel raid along with their 
traffickers in March 2008 were deported to China for 
immigration and employment violations, but no information 
about the traffickers has been released by the government. 
In conjunction with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), 
IOM used anti-trafficking funds from multiple donors to train 
police, immigration and border officials to identify 
trafficking victims among prostituted women, laborers, 
travelers, and victims of abuse.  Police began to alert some 
embassies and IOM in advance of raiding brothels suspected of 
holding foreign victims. 
 
Protection 
---------- 
South African government efforts to ensure trafficking 
victims, access to protective services increased during the 
reporting period.  The Department of Social Development 
directly ran some shelters, notably for children, while also 
overseeing and helping to fund private shelters for victims 
of trafficking.  Draft legislation and recently enacted laws 
contained significant provisions for the protection of 
victims which had previously been unavailable, and some 
agencies began to train their officials and implement the 
provisions.  The amended SOA stipulates that victims of sex 
trafficking not be charged with crimes which are the direct 
result of having been trafficked; in the two trafficking 
cases prosecuted under the SOA, trafficked women forced to 
work as prostitutes were identified by police as victims 
during a raid to arrest their traffickers, and were referred 
for assistance rather than arrested.  Following extensive 
awareness and sensitivity training by the UNODC, IOM, and 
others, police began to implement victim protection 
provisions contained in the SOA and in the Children,s Act, 
which is still not enacted.  Both identified and suspected 
trafficking victims received services and shelter at 
overextended facilities for victims of domestic abuse, 
gender-based violence, rape, and sexual assault run by NGOs. 
The Department of Social Development (DSD), South African 
Police Service (SAPS), and these private shelters 
collaborated to care for identified trafficking victims.  DSD 
is the only agency 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 and SAPS formally notified each other of cases 
 
STATE 00060529  004 OF 006 
 
 
to enable rapid care, as well as effective gathering of 
evidence and testimony.  Victim-witnesses in the 
aforementioned child-trafficking trial testified via 
video-link from outside the courtroom.  Three Thai women are 
currently receiving long-term assistance, which is offered to 
foreign victims who agree to remain in South Africa in 
witness protection programs while awaiting the trial of their 
traffickers.  Sex trafficking victims continued to be 
classified in law enforcement records as victims of rape, 
domestic abuse, and gender-based violence; as a result, there 
are no official statistics concerning the number of victims 
assisted during the reporting period.  South Africa did not 
provide all trafficking victims with legal alternatives to 
deportation to countries where they may face hardship or 
retribution.  In March 2009, the press reported that police 
deported the aforementioned 27 Chinese women detained in 2007 
along with their seven alleged traffickers.  Awareness of 
trafficking-related law, the ability to apply it to identify 
victims, and knowledge of appropriate procedures were lacking 
among many police and immigration officers, since only a 
relatively small number have yet received specific 
counter-trafficking training. 
 
Prevention 
---------- 
The government demonstrated strong progress in combating 
human trafficking through prevention efforts.  Extensive 
workshops by the NPA,s Sexual Offenses and Community Affairs 
unit (SOCA), IOM, NGOs, and academic experts prepared over 
3,000 government, community, NGO, and media personnel for the 
passage of the comprehensive anti-trafficking law.  As part 
of the training program, IOM ran 30 awareness-raising 
workshops across all nine provinces which drew 573 community 
participants; government officials presented speeches and led 
discussions during these events.  The government worked with 
IOM to distribute more than 85,000 counter-trafficking 
posters and brochures in six languages, publicizing IOM's 
toll-free helpline.  High-level officials repeatedly spoke 
out against sex trafficking that might occur during the 2010 
FIFA World Cup preparations and activities.  The 
Inter-sectoral Task Team addressed anti-trafficking and child 
protection measures as part of the plans for hosting the 
World Cup.  The multinational South African Immigration 
Liaison (SAIL) Team at Johannesburg,s airport observed 
passengers, behavior and travel histories for patterns 
indicative of trafficking.   In addition, flight manifests 
were checked for known trafficking suspects against databases 
with information about persons of concern before boarding 
began.  The government continued a project begun in 2003 by 
drafting a Child Labor Plan of Action to combat and prevent 
child labor, including trafficking for child labor, which the 
government planned to implement in 2009.  The government 
provided anti-trafficking training to all South African 
troops destined for peacekeeping missions abroad prior to 
their deployment. 
 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶9. Post may wish to deliver the following points, which offer 
technical and legal background on the TIP Report process, to 
the host government as a non-paper with the above TIP Report 
country narrative: 
 
(begin non-paper) 
 
-- The U.S. Congress, through its passage of the 2000 
Trafficking Victims Protection Act, as amended (TVPA), 
requires the Secretary of State to submit an annual Report to 
Congress.  The goal of this Report is to stimulate action and 
create partnerships around the world in the fight against 
modern-day slavery.  The USG approach to combating human 
trafficking follows the TVPA and the standards set forth in 
the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in 
Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the 
United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized 
Crime (commonly known as the "Palermo Protocol").  The TVPA 
and the Palermo Protocol recognize that this is a crime in 
which the victims, labor or services (including in the "sex 
industry") are obtained or maintained through force, fraud, 
or coercion, whether overt or through psychological 
manipulation.  While much attention has focused on 
international flows, both the TVPA and the Palermo Protocol 
focus on the exploitation of the victim, and do not require a 
showing that the victim was moved. 
 
-- Recent amendments to the TVPA removed the requirement that 
only countries with a "significant number" of trafficking 
victims be included in the Report. Beginning with the 2009 
TIP Report, countries determined to be a country of origin, 
transit, or destination for victims of severe forms of 
 
STATE 00060529  005 OF 006 
 
 
trafficking are included in the Report and assigned to one of 
three tiers.  Countries assessed as meeting the "minimum 
standards for the elimination of severe forms of trafficking" 
set forth in the TVPA are classified as Tier 1.  Countries 
assessed as not fully complying with the minimum standards, 
but making significant efforts to meet those minimum 
standards are classified as Tier 2.  Countries assessed as 
neither complying with the minimum standards nor making 
significant efforts to do so are classified as Tier 3. 
 
-- The TVPA also requires the Secretary of State to provide a 
"Special Watch List" to Congress later in the year. 
Anti-trafficking efforts of the countries on this list are to 
be evaluated again in an Interim Assessment that the 
Secretary of State must provide to Congress by February 1 of 
each year.  Countries are included on the "Special Watch 
List" if they move up in "tier" rankings in the annual TIP 
Report -- from 3 to 2 or from 2 to 1 ) or if they have been 
placed on the Tier 2 Watch List. 
 
-- Tier 2 Watch List consists of Tier 2 countries determined: 
(1) not to have made "increasing efforts" to combat human 
trafficking over the past year; (2) to be making significant 
efforts based on commitments of anti-trafficking reforms over 
the next year, or (3) to have a very significant number of 
trafficking victims or a significantly increasing victim 
population.  As indicated in reftel B, the TVPRA of 2008 
contains a provision requiring that a country that has been 
included on Tier 2 Watch List for two consecutive years after 
the date of enactment of the TVPRA of 2008 be ranked as Tier 
¶3.  Thus, any automatic downgrade to Tier 3 pursuant to this 
provision would take place, at the earliest, in the 2011 TIP 
Report (i.e., a country would have to be ranked Tier 2 Watch 
List in the 2009 and 2010 Reports before being subject to 
Tier 3 in the 2011 Report).  The new law allows for a waiver 
of this provision for up to two additional years upon a 
determination by the President that the country has developed 
and devoted sufficient resources to a written plan to make 
significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with the 
minimum standards. 
 
-- Countries classified as Tier 3 may be subject to statutory 
restrictions for the subsequent fiscal year on 
non-humanitarian and non-trade-related foreign assistance 
and, in some circumstances, withholding of funding for 
participation by government officials or employees in 
educational and cultural exchange programs.   In addition, 
the President could instruct the U.S. executive directors to 
international financial institutions to oppose loans or other 
utilization of funds (other than for humanitarian, 
trade-related or certain types of development assistance) 
with respect to countries on Tier 3.  Countries classified as 
Tier 3 that take strong action within 90 days of the Report's 
release to show significant efforts against trafficking in 
persons, and thereby warrant a reassessment of their Tier 
classification, would avoid such sanctions.  Guidelines for 
such actions are in the DOS-crafted action plans to be shared 
by Posts with host governments. 
 
-- The 2009 TIP Report, issuing as it does in the midst of 
the global financial crisis, highlights high levels of 
trafficking for forced labor in many parts of the world and 
systemic contributing factors to this phenomenon:  fraudulent 
recruitment practices and excessive recruiting fees in 
workers, home countries; the lack of adequate labor 
protections in both sending and receiving countries; and the 
flawed design of some destination countries, "sponsorship 
systems" that do not give foreign workers adequate legal 
recourse when faced with conditions of forced labor.  As the 
May 2009 ILO Global Report on Forced Labor concluded, forced 
labor victims suffer approximately $20 billion in losses, and 
traffickers, profits are estimated at $31 billion.  The 
current global financial crisis threatens to increase the 
number of victims of forced labor and increase the associated 
"cost of coercion." 
 
-- The text of the TVPA and amendments can be found on 
website www.state.gov/g/tip. 
 
-- On June 16, 2009, the Secretary of State will release the 
ninth annual TIP Report in a public event at the State 
Department.  We are providing you an advance copy of your 
country's narrative in that report.  Please keep this 
information embargoed until 10:00 am Washington DC time June 
¶16.  The State Department will also hold a general briefing 
for officials of foreign embassies in Washington DC on June 
17 at 3:30 pm EDT. 
 
(end non-paper) 
 
 
STATE 00060529  006 OF 006 
 
 
¶10. Posts should make sure that the relevant country 
narrative is readily available on or though the Mission's web 
page in English and appropriate local language(s) as soon as 
possible after the TIP Report is released.  Funding for 
translation costs will be handled as it was for the Human 
Rights Report.  Posts needing financial assistance for 
translation costs should contact their regional bureau,s EX 
office. 
 
¶11. The following is press guidance provided for Post to use 
with local media. 
 
Q1:  What is the nature of South Africa,s trafficking 
problem? 
 
¶A.  South Africa is a source, transit, and destination 
country for trafficked men, women, and children.  Children 
are largely trafficked within the country ) girls for the 
purposes of commercial sexual exploitation, forced marriage, 
and domestic servitude; boys for forced street vending, food 
service, crime, begging, and agriculture; both boys and girls 
for the removal of their organs for traditional medicine. 
Women are trafficked to Europe and the Middle East for 
domestic servitude and sexual exploitation, while foreign 
women are trafficked into South Africa for commercial sexual 
exploitation, domestic servitude, and other forced work in 
the service sector.  Men from the PRC and the ROC are 
trafficked to mobile sweatshop factories in Chinese urban 
enclaves which evade labor inspectors by moving in and out of 
neighboring Lesotho and Swaziland to avoid arrest.  Young men 
and boys from other African countries voluntarily migrate 
illegally to South Africa for farm work, and some are forced 
to labor for little or no pay under conditions of involuntary 
servitude. 
 
Q2:  It seems that trafficking is a serious problem in South 
Africa, so why was the country upgraded to Tier 2 this year? 
 
¶A.  This past year, the government made significant efforts 
to comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of 
trafficking.  The government opened prosecutions against 16 
suspected trafficking offenders during the year and is 
continuing to prepare for late 2009 passage and subsequent 
implementation of its comprehensive anti-trafficking law by 
developing inter-agency operating procedures and training 
officials on the law, victim identification, and agency 
roles.  Foreign victims in South Africa, however, still face 
inadequate protection from the government and sometimes are 
treated as criminals.  Labor trafficking does not receive as 
much government attention as does sex trafficking.  Moreover, 
little or no information is made available about the status 
of pending prosecutions, and the government suspended 
development of a national anti-trafficking plan of action to 
start the process anew. 
 
Q3:  What can South Africa do to maintain and further its 
anti-trafficking efforts? 
 
¶A.  The government could pass and enact the Prevention and 
Combating of Trafficking in Persons Bill; implement the 
Children,s Amendment Act of 2007; increase awareness among 
all levels of relevant government officials as to their 
responsibilities under the trafficking provisions of the 
Sexual Offenses and Children,s Acts; support prevention 
strategies developed by NGOs to address demand for commercial 
sex acts and protect children from commercial sexual 
exploitation in advance of the 2010 World Cup;  support the 
adoption of measures to protect children from sexual 
exploitation in travel and tourism; and institute formal 
procedures to regularly compile national statistics on the 
number of trafficking cases prosecuted and victims assisted, 
as is done for other crimes. 
 
 
¶12. The Department appreciates posts, assistance with the 
preceding action requests. 
CLINTON