Chinese women in court for human trafficking
Two Chinese women charged with human trafficking for sexual purposes, appeared in court in Cape Town.
|||Cape Town - Two Chinese women charged with human trafficking for sexual purposes, appeared in court on Thursday.
Due to the sexual nature of the alleged offence, they may not be identified until their trial commences, and they plead to the charge.
They appeared in the Parow Sexual Offences Court, before magistrate Elsa van Zyl. The prosecutor, Portia Chauke, told the court that this was their first appearance in the sexual offences court.
She said the case had been referred to the Western Cape Directorate for Public Prosecutions (DPP), to decide the “way forward”.
She undertook to furnish legal aid attorney Vernon Ebersohn with particulars of the charge, as soon as she received the docket back from the DPP.
The same two women were fined R2 000 or eight months each in March 2012, for running a brothel, living off the earnings of prostitution and running a business without a license. At the time, they had faced 13 charges, which included human trafficking, kidnapping, procurement and the illegal employment of a foreigner.
However, 10 of the 13 charges were withdrawn, including the human trafficking count, because the Chinese woman, who had been lured into the country on the promise of lucrative employment in a massage parlour, had disappeared.
Whether the current charge of human trafficking is new, or merely the withdrawn charge re-instituted, will only be clarified when the two women appear in court again on February 23.
On Wednesday, a couple from Goodwood in Cape Town's northern suburbs, made their first appearance in the Parow Sexual Offences Court, also charged with human trafficking.
Magistrate Van Zyl warned them to appear again on March 2, when defence attorney Leon van der Merwe will be furnished with the charge sheet.
African News Agency
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