South Africa faces a major problem with human trafficking and smuggling before the World Cup and it is exacerbated by the country's inexperience in dealing with this, according to Deputy Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba.
Gigaba, briefing journalists in Pretoria yesterday, admitted that South Africa had not anticipated the scale of the problem and had woken up to the reality only recently.
"The fact (is) that we don't have much experience in combating human trafficking. For quite a long time we thought it was a problem that had nothing to do with us... a problem existing in Europe and the US."
The deputy minister announced new measures to prevent paedophiles, soccer hooligans and other "undesirable" visitors from entering the country during the World Cup.
Experts have warned that human trafficking will surge during the soccer showpiece, as has been the case in previous world cup tournaments.
"Human trafficking is a major area of concern. Even before the World Cups starts, human trafficking is receiving a lot of attention from the department. We are worried that there is a lot of human trafficking to and from Africa especially within our (Southern African) region. We are going to pay great attention to it during the World Cup," Gigaba said.
He added that the department would train immigration officers in detecting cases of human trafficking and smuggling.
The Justice Department is drafting anti-trafficking legislation, but Gigaba said all southern African countries should develop laws to combat the exploitation of people.
"What compounded the challenge in South Africa is the absence of coherent legislative framework in the region and the absence of strong capacity to be able to deal with human traffickers both from the countries of origin and countries of destination."
According to a 2008 US State Department report on global human trafficking, South Africa is "a source, transit, and destination country" for trafficked people.
The report said girls in South Africa - which had no legislation against the crime before last year - were trafficked in the major cities for prostitution and "domestic servitude" while boys were used for street vending or work on farms.
It said anecdotal evidence suggested that children were forced to work in return for their family occupying land or accommodation while others were forced into sex work after promises of jobs by criminal syndicates.
Many suspected human traffickers were arrested in 2007, but there were no anti-trafficking investigations that resulted in any convictions.
The report said more than 12,3 million people were victims of human trafficking around the world.
Gigaba said that while the department was working hard to prevent trafficking, not much could be done without help from other institutions, including the Department of Social Development, the intelligence services and the police.
"It's a complex challenge... as it involves human trafficking within our borders and from abroad. This requires a lot of co-operation between the various agencies of government. But we think that we are developing a programme to enable us during the World Cup to do our utmost to combat human trafficking in all its various forms," Gigaba said.
The department has introduced a high-tech system that will block "unwanted" visitors, such as blacklisted paedophiles and soccer hooligans, from coming to the World Cup.
The advanced passenger processing system will enable security agencies to vet all travellers against various lists of people not allowed to travel abroad by their countries.
"There are undesirable people who are already on lists of Interpol and Fifa and other international agencies and we blacklist those people. When they apply for travel to South Africa we get a list of people... and we co-operate with the airlines to check against the prohibited list," Gigaba said.