Trafficked.Africa spotlights the myths and realities of human trafficking in regions where little tangible knowledge and data exists. This is how our story began.
Shining a light on a hidden crime
In some parts of southern Africa, communities live in fear of an organised and lethal crime driven by profit and desperation: human trafficking. Speculation and misinformation have dogged public debate around the issue. Yet, little real data and information exists on trafficking in the region. One thing is certain: poverty and inequality make traffickers’ jobs far easier.
When Grizelda Grootboom was 8 years old, the apartheid government tore her from her family home in Woodstock, a sought-after neighbourhood in Cape Town, South Africa. Losing her home led her to live in Khayelitsha, a well-known township just outside the city. She was sexually assaulted at 18, and became homeless. Desperate for a way out of her distress, Grootboom befriended a wealthy young woman who promised her a better life in Johannesburg. She excitedly made the move. But once she arrived, her friend disappeared and her dream of a prosperous new beginning violently broke down.
“Instead, I was tied up, beaten, and injected with drugs for nearly two weeks. I was essentially forced into addiction and kept as a sex slave,” Grootboom said.
For eight years, Grootboom sold her body for drugs. Her ordeal ended after she fell pregnant and belatedly aborted her baby at six months. She was hospitalised and rehabilitated until she was well enough to begin working in a church. She managed to flee Johannesburg when a pastor asked her to traffic drugs to Cape Town.
She is now one of South Africa’s most well-known and outspoken survivors of sexual trafficking.
“I was one of the lucky ones,” she said.
Grootboom’s story begins like many narratives from other survivors: desperation for a life of safety and financial stability. But the true reality of how many women and children are entrapped in trafficking is unknowable. The United States’s annual Trafficking in Persons report suggests that 377 victims of trafficking were identified in South Africa in 2019. However, NGOS have alleged that the country’s human trafficking records are incomplete. Data on trafficking is equally hard to find in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. So, how is it possible to know the true extent of trafficking in these countries?
Code for Africa has partnered with the Ink Centre for Investigative Journalism in Botswana, New Frame in South Africa and Carta de Moçambique in Mozambique to make public a hidden crime which is rarely investigated. This project is about sharing the stories of people affected by trafficking and undoing the misinformation that harms these societies.
Trafficked.Africa is an initiative of Code for Africa, with support from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit.
About GIZ
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is a global service provider in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development. GIZ has over 50 years of experience in a wide variety of areas, including economic development and employment, energy and the environment, and peace and security. As a public-benefit federal enterprise, GIZ supports the German Government — in particular the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) — and public and private sector clients in around 130 countries in achieving their objectives in international cooperation. With this aim, GIZ works together with its partners to develop effective solutions that offer people better prospects and sustainably improve their living conditions.
About Code for Africa
Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest network of civic technology and data journalism labs, with teams in 12 countries. CfA builds digital democracy solutions that give citizens unfettered access to actionable information that empowers them to make informed decisions, and that strengthens civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability. This includes building infrastructure like the continent’s largest open data portals at openAFRICA and sourceAFRICA, as well as incubating initiatives as diverse as the africanDRONE network, the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative and the sensors.AFRICA air quality sensor network.
CfA also manages that African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), which gives the continent’s best muckraking newsrooms the best possible forensic forensic data tools, digital security and whistleblower encryption to help improve their ability to tackle crooked politicians, organised crime and predatory big business. CfA also runs one of Africa’s largest skills development initiatives for digital journalists, and seed funds cross-border collaboration.
Newsroom Partners
New Frame is a not-for-profit, social justice digital media publication based in Johannesburg, Gauteng. The publication is committed to careful and factually accurate reporting, and to working with people of integrity. New Frame chases quality, not clicks.
Carta de Moçambique is an online journalism platform, created to be the leading source of quality information of its kind in Mozambique. It produces non-partisan, critical and independent investigative journalism in the public interest.
The Ink Centre for Investigative Journalism is an independent, non-profit investigative journalism newsroom in Gaborone, Botswana. The Centre mentors young reporters working under significant budget constraints. Its work focuses exclusively on truly important stories.
Contributors
Zinhle Zulu: Illustrator
Ndumiso Nyoni: Illustrator and Motion Designer
Shamiso Mlilo: Social Media Manager
Mosidi Mokaeya: Journalist, Ink Centre for Investigative Journalism
Marta Afonso: Journalist, Carta de Moçambique
Jan Bornman: Journalist, New Frame
Sylvia Makinia: Fact-Checker, PesaCheck
James Okong’o: Fact-Checker, PesaCheck
Credits
Project Managers: Ashlin Simpson, Ra’eesa Pather, Siyabonga Africa
Editors: Ra’eesa Pather
Data: Tricia Govindasamy, Mercy Karagi, Emma Kisa
Investigations: Allan Cheboi, Leon Vambe, Jean Githae
Map / Visualisations: Tricia Govindasamy, Sakina Salem
Design: Piero Zagami
