Mega¬ Sporting Events Fuelling Human Trafficking?

The upcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup scheduled to take place in South Africa between 11 June and 11 July 2010 has once again raised concerns over the possibility of human trafficking. A study by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), South Africa’s statutory research agency, has already warned that human trafficking is a serious problem in South Africa and that the FIFA World Cup could lead to an increase in the volume of trafficking. The report Tsireledzani: Understanding the dimensions of human trafficking in southern Africa stated that victims of trafficking in South Africa are mostly women, girls and boys trafficked for a variety of purposes, including prostitution, pornography, domestic servitude, forced labour, begging, criminal activity (including drug trafficking), and trafficking for the removal of body parts (or muti). Moreover, South Africa is a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking. It has 72 official ports of entry “and a number of unofficial ports of entry where people come in and out without being detected” along its 5,000 km-long land borderline.