Maputo - Mozambique's Justice Minister Benvinda Levi on Thursday urged tougher action against the trafficking of women and children, many of whom are smuggled to South Africa and forced to work in the sex trade. Levi was addressing a special parliamentary hearing on human trafficking, an issue that has dominated headlines in the country over the past week following revelations that three girls were lured to South Africa in January and forced to work as sex slaves for two months.
Levi urged parliament to quickly pass draft legislation on human trafficking and protection of minors, including stiffer jail terms for convicted child traffickers
The case of the three young trafficking victims from the capital Maputo has rocked Mozambique.
Earlier this week a high-level delegation of crime-fighting officials travelled to South Africa to try to obtain the extradition of the main female suspect in the affair who faces charges of abduction, entrapment and document forgery in Mozambique.
The former Portuguese colony is one of the world's poorest countries.
In an interview with state TVM television last week the three girls, aged 16 to 20, said the woman, whom they met on the beach in Maputo, lured to Africa's biggest economy with the promise of getting them work as hairdressers.
Once there they were forced to work as sex slaves for nearly two months in a brothel in a leafy suburb of the administrative capital Pretoria, servicing up to 10 mostly older men a day, with no pay. One girl said she was beaten when she failed to perform.
The girls escaped through the intervention of a Mozambican lawyer, who came to know of their existence and masqueraded as a potential client, and have since returned to Maputo.
The United Nations children's agency UNICEF has expressed alarm over the lack of protection for children in Mozambique.
"This episode (of the three girls) calls our attention to the serious problem of children trafficking and to the need to urgently adopt legal instruments to curb this practice," UNHCR's Mozambique representative Leila Pakkala said.
According to Unicef, Mozambique is both a source and transit point for trafficked children, mostly girls aged 13 to 18 being taken to South Africa.
Margarida Guitunga, executive Director of the Southern Africa Network Against Trafficking of Children (SANTAC) estimates the number of girls trafficked to South Africa each month at around 100.
South Africa, as a destination, must also immediately adopt laws on human trafficking, she said.
