Anelia Blackie

[color="Navy"]An undercover investigation has led to the arrest of nine men who may have been forcing women to work as prostitutes from flats in Sunnyside and Arcadia.
The arrests followed Rekord’s recent reports on how [color="navy"]two women were kidnapped, tied to beds and raped repeatedly.Five of [color="navy"]the men who were arrested are Nigerian immigrants while four are from Tanzania. They all have temporary permits to stay in South Africa legally.
The men were charged with assault and drug dealing.
After Rekord’s previous report on these crimes, a number of readers came forward with more horrific tales. [color="navy"]Two of them are women aged 22 and 24, who told investigators how the men forced them to work as prostitutes until they escaped about two weeks ago.
One of the women told of a drug lord who sold her to pimps for R500 when she owed him money.
“[color="navy"]They held me captive in a flat in Arcadia, raped me whenever they felt like it and forced me to work as a prostitute at night.“I shared the flat with five other women of all races between the ages of 18 and 25. The pimps threatened to kill our families if we dared to escape,” she says.
She led investigators last Friday to a flat where she was held in Pretorius Street, Arcadia. [color="navy"]She says more women were held against their will in the building and forced to work as sex slaves.
A man managed to escape through a window when investigators kicked in the door and found a[color="navy"] Nigerian man and a woman inside the small and bare bachelor’s flat.The woman told the investigators that she shares the flat with the two pimps and that they beat her up when she does not earn enough money for them. She showed them a bruise on one arm where they hit her with an electric cord.
“They do not allow me to go anywhere on my own and stay near me while I am working on the street.
“When I bring clients to the flat, they stand guard outside the door. I do not want to live like this but I need the drugs,” she said.
The woman’s speech was slurred and she tested positive for cocaine and heroine on the scene.
She says she grew up in Elardus Park and went to Hoërskool Waterkloof but could not remember her age.
When the investigators stormed another flat in the same building, nobody was home.
Empty heroine bags were found in the flat as well as pornographic DVDs, sexy lingerie and women’s wigs.
A collection of gospel CDs, a Bok van Blerk CD and photo albums of a seemingly average and happy South African family were also found in the flat.
“They do not stay in the same flat for long.
When one of their sex slaves escapes, they move away quickly before she can get them into trouble with the police,” says one of the investigators.
The investigation continues and anyone with information can phone 082-442-4000.

http://www.rekord.co.za/story.aspx?lan=Afr&sid=17856

This woman was found living with two Nigerian pimps in a flat in Arcadia last Friday. She works as a prostitute and told investigators how her pimps beat her up when whe fails to earn enough money. Photo: Anelia Blackie

Police use bolt cutters to free sex slave

Forced entry: Police use bolt cutters to break into a locked room in Hillbrow, deliberately kept locked to stop a young prostitute from running away. Photo: Chris Collingridge, The Star

Karyn Maughan
May 29 2006 at 05:48AM

It was a sight that disturbed hardened police officers: a teenager locked behind a gate with black burglar bars, waiting for the next "John" to pay her captor to have sex with her.

The girl, in jeans and faded long-sleeved vest, was just one of 16 young women - allegedly involved in Hillbrow's thriving child sex industry - taken into custody on Friday after police raided a derelict block of flats and two notorious inner-city brothels, "Little Rose" and "Soper 10".

After using metal cutters to free the dazed teenager, who said she was from the Free State, Hillbrow police discovered that she had been "sold" to a Nigerian national to pay a drug debt.

The bars were put up to stop her from running away.

'We managed to track down some of the parents'
Unable to leave her prison, the girl survived on whatever food was passed through the bars and was forced to use a plastic ice-cream tub as a makeshift toilet. That too she would pass back to her captor, who is still at large.

As she walked out of the building, she stared in front of her, barely responding to police officers' questions.

It is believed that she was held captive in the barred room for at least a month.

Shockingly, Senior Superintendent Koos van Rhyn told The Star, this type of sex slavery was not uncommon.

"If the guy wants to have sex with the girl, he pays and gets the key to the room."

'Do you like being a prostitute?'
Hillbrow police spokesperson Inspector Kriban Naidoo on Sunday said Child Protection Unit officers and counsellors had been called in to speak to this girl and other teenagers taken into custody.

"Some of them claimed they were living with their parents in hotels. We managed to track down some of the parents," Naidoo said.

He said the raid, in which police arrested a man on suspicion of prostituting a teenage heroin addict and her boyfriend for drugs, was inspired by The Star's recent exposé on [color="navy"]Johannesburg's child sex industry.Police stopped the man and the young Randfontein couple as they drove through Hillbrow, apparently in search of drugs.

The painfully thin teenager told the police her name was Sonja, and claimed to be 18.

She offered no resistance as two policewomen pushed up the sleeves of her tracksuit top to reveal fresh needle marks on her arms.

The inside of her mouth was covered in festering blisters that characterise sexually transmitted disease, and her feet were swollen from heroin abuse.

"Why are you doing this?" a policewoman asked. "[color="Navy"]You are so beautiful and you have your whole life ahead of you. Do you like what you're doing? Do you like being a prostitute? You're killing yourself!"

Holding back tears, she constantly looked back to see if her boyfriend, Dylan, was still nearby.

Dylan too had fresh needle marks on his arms. He told the police that the man with them, who police suspect was their pimp, was a "good friend".

Asked to unpack the boot, Sonja unloaded dirty clothes, condoms, a blonde wig and a ripped poster for a circus act onto the road.

After the police decided to take Sonja, Dylan and their "friend" into custody, a policewoman led Sonja to a police car and a policeman pushed Dylan into the back of an already crammed police van.

Naidoo said they were unable to place Sonja in a rehabilitation centre as she had no money for the admission fee.

He said the police had also detained 60 foreign nationals and two others in connection with possession of drugs.
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20060529004504895C193732

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