The Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg, South Africa, yesterday sentenced seven Chinese nationals to 20 years imprisonment for smuggling Malawians to that country and subjecting them to forced labour.
The South African court found the four men and three women guilty of human trafficking and kidnapping earlier this year after they were arrested in November 2019 in a Hawks-led operation that resulted in the rescue of 91 Malawians.
The Hawks is the branch of the South African Police Service (Saps), which investigates organised crime, economic crime, corruption and other serious offences.
The trafficked Malawians, who included 37 children, were smuggled into South Africa in shipping containers and were, discovered working under exploitative conditions and also suffered injuries while on duty at a firm which produces cotton fibre sheets.
They were rescued after the Hawks and South Africa’s department of labour officials raided the Chinese factory known as Beautiful City in Village Deep, Johannesburg, after authorities received a tip-off from a worker who had escaped.
According to various news outlets that covered the High Court ruling delivered by Judge David Mhango, the convicts- Kevin Tsao, Chen Hui, Qin Li, Jiaqing Zhou, Ma Biao, Dai Junying, and Zhang Zhilian were found guilty on 158 of the 160 counts for which they were charged.
Delivering his ruling, Mhango said the State presented overwhelming evidence and praised the reliability of witnesses, the thoroughness of police investigations and the success of the Hawks’ operation.
The judge also ordered the Chinese company to pay a fine of R300 000, which is equivalent of K525 million.
During trial, the court heard that the Malawians were forced to work 11-hour shifts, seven days a week, without safety equipment and were also being paid far below South Africa’s minimum wage of $1.64 (about K2 900) per hour and had their pay docked if they wanted time off.
The Chinese were convicted in February this year for charges that included human trafficking, kidnapping, contraventions of immigration laws and the exploitation of workers.
According to BBC News, one man testified that workers were not allowed to leave the heavily guarded factory premises, even to buy food, which he described as dirty and unsuitable for human beings.
Six of the accused persons remained behind bars during the long-running six-year trial, while one of them, Junying was released on bail for medical reasons.
However, The Eye Witness News reported that chaos erupted immediately after the sentencing as Junying’s daughter confronted reporters, claiming her mother and her co-accused were being framed.
The paper said she vocally maintained the accused’s innocence alleging that a firearms-linked syndicate, which operates in the Chinese community in Bruma, Johannesburg, was behind the crimes.
Commenting on the sentencing, labour and human rights activist Robert Mkwezalamba welcomed the development, saying it sends a strong message that the Southern African Development Community or Africa will not condone human trafficking regardless of the victims’ nationality.
He said: “It sets the call for states to cooperate to ensure that the vice is completely put to a stop. It is imperative that Malawi government must take responsibility of its nationals and ensure that they are repatriated back home and that they are not loitering again in South Africa as that will defeat the whole purpose of fighting the vice.”
