“To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” – Nelson Mandela.

2009 marked fifteen years of freedom from the chains of the apartheid era for South Africa, a time to celebrate the successes of a peaceful transition to democracy and the many improvements to the lives of ordinary men and women in the intervening years. Sadly, however, not all is rosy in this fledgling democracy.

Ongoing widespread poverty and unemployment mean many of South Africa’s citizens go hungry. HIV and AIDS is ravaging the land, leaving thousands of orphans in child-headed households. While successful economic policies have resulted in a booming economy, a negative spin-off has been the thousands of immigrants, legitimate and otherwise, who have flooded into South Africa seeking to share in these newfound material benefits.

Sadly, some of these new immigrants are members of crime syndicates—criminal parasites who have introduced South Africans to a frightening new twenty-first-century reality, one that feeds off the vulnerability of the poor, the unemployed, the uneducated, and the orphaned. Human trafficking, as in many parts of the world, is becoming a booming business on the tip of the African continent.

Human trafficking, a modern-day form of slavery, is acknowledged to be the third largest international criminal activity, after arms smuggling and drug trafficking. Worldwide, trafficking in persons generates profits in excess of US$12 billion a year for those who, by force and deception, sell human lives into slavery and sexual bondage.

The U.S. State Department estimates that approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders annually, while many others are trafficked intra-nationally. Trafficking is a lucrative business, because unlike arms or drugs which are sold once, humans can be sold and resold again and again, and the majority of those who are trapped, tricked, and trafficked, are sold for sexual exploitation as prostitutes.

The staging of the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010 has been cause for national celebration, and has provided thousands of jobs as hundreds of man-hours and materials are poured into the construction of soccer stadiums and preparations for hosting the tournament in venues around the country. South Africans are justifiably proud of being chosen to host this prestigious world sporting event.

But there is a major downside to the staging of the World Cup. Most experts in the field of counter-trafficking argue that there is a correlation between demand for the services of prostitutes and large numbers of male tourists attending major sporting events, and there is great concern that trafficking in South Africa will increase as thousands of tourists descend upon the country, visa requirements are relaxed, and schools are closed for a five-week, mid-year holiday period.

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