AFRICA - House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats

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compiling a qualitative report on the subject; however, the report was not expected
to indicate the scope of the problem.
The approximately 20 anecdotal reports that Connect was compiling were mostly
of Zimbabwean female teenagers whose families, in the economic decline, had accepted
some form of payment in exchange for allowing them to work in brothels,
notably in the border town of Beitbridge. Molo Songololo claimed that Zimbabwe
was a transit point for children being trafficked from countries such as those in Asia
and Malawi to South Africa; however, they could provide no specific examples or
numbers of cases.
While it commonly was known that many Zimbabwean women worked in the
hotel industry in South Africa, sometimes a euphemism for commercial sex work,
and many Zimbabweans were low-wage agricultural workers in South Africa, there
was no evidence of coercion or force in these areas.
There were no reports of organized trafficking groups. Unlike in the previous
year, there were no reports that Taiwanese crime syndicates were involved in trafficking
Chinese through the country.
The Government generally did not acknowledge the problem of trafficking in persons;
however, a trafficked person had the option to take his or her case before the
VFC. No cases were filed during the year.
The regional governments had not taken action on recommendations made at the
2001 conference on trafficking by year’s end.
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