this Tuesday April 1, 2003, SABC 3 at 9h30 pm -

"SOLD SISTERS" exposes a network of human traffickers who smuggle Mozambican girls and women across the border and sell them as sex slaves in South Africa.

Yet, it is a trade that nobody seems prepared to speak out about.

Special Assignment, armed with concealed cameras, infiltrated the operations of two traffickers - one in Komatipoort on the Mozambican-South African border and one in Maputo. With promises of good jobs and lots of money, these traffickers lure their victims to Johannesburg. They smuggle the girls across the border and when they arrive in South Africa, they are sold into sexual slavery.

We first met Joseh Khosa, alias Joshia Lubisi, alias Mazet, in a bar in Johannesburg. He told our undercover journalist that he had seven girls for sale in Maputo.

Khosa is a Mozambican who lives with forged South African papers in Komatipoort. He is both a professional human smuggler and trafficker.

He runs a network that smuggles Mozambicans into South Africa. According to IOM, a smuggled person is a client. They pay someone to get them across the border. When they arrive here, they pay the smuggler a negotiated fee and are free to go.

Trafficking is something altogether different. According to IOM's Jonathan Martens, it has three elements: Recruitment, transportation and exploitation.

In February this year, in a house in a Maputo suburb, Khosa paraded four girls to Special Assignment. He wanted R850 for each girl.

Khosa told our undercover journalists that he usually sells the trafficked girls as wives to Mozambicans working on South African mines. He has halfway houses in Komatipoort where he takes the girls, before finally transporting them to Johannesburg. By the time a girl arrives at Khosa's house, she is disorientated. She has no papers or money and is at his mercy. Before he loads them onto taxis, he often rapes her in order to "break her in".

IOM's Martens says physical abuse of trafficked women is common. Girls are often raped to "give them a hint of what is in store".

Elvinah Alfredi Nkuna, a schoolgirl from Maputo, was one of the girls that was recruited by Khosa. He told her that he had a client in Johannesburg who needed waitresses for his new restaurant. She accepted. Six other girls also accepted his offer.

Elvinah Nkuna and Amelia Lazaro were loaded onto a taxi in Maputo. Together with a group of smuggled Mozambican men, they jumped the electric fence near the Lebombo border post and were taken to Khosa's house. That night, he tried to force the girls to have sex with him. They became scared that they would be sold. The next day they were taken to Johannesburg.

When Special Assignment's journalists heard that the two girls had arrived in Johannesburg, they tried to free them from Khosa. He refused to tell us where they were. Finally, the police swooped on two of his safe houses in Johannesburg. There they found the two girls and fifteen smuggled Mozambicans. Khosa however was not arrested and does not seem to be sought by police.

In this instance, we warned the girls about the trafficker's intentions to sell them as sex slaves to us.

We also spoke to two other women who had been "trafficked". One had been sold as a wife to a mineworker, and another worked as a prostitute in Hillbrow. They are now back in Maputo, prostitutes in the some of the city's most notorious nightspots.

"SOLD SISTERS" is directed by Jacques Pauw and edited by Hannes van Vuuren. The journalist is Alpheus Siebane and the researcher is Anna-Maria Lombard.