Trafficked into the devil’s bedroom

In our mind’s eye, the victims of human trafficking tend to be refugees or desperately poor women from Thailand or Eastern Europe – not educated women from middle-class, white South Africa. In reality, anyone can be trafficked – and the trade in people is thriving right under our noses. By Angelique Ardé

Candice is not her real name. Eager as she is to reveal it, the risks are too great. “I’m not fearful for my own life,” she says matter-of-factly. “But they’ve threatened to harm my children.”
The ominous “they” work for her former bosses – those who purchased her from traffickers and profiteered from her labour as a prostitute in a Cape Town brothel. They tried to get to her immediately after she escaped, but the intention then was more to break her down and hopefully get her to go back.
Now, however, they want her silenced. For lately Candice has been sharing her story in churches and on radio (anonymously), telling of how she was trafficked into prostitution, the brutality that is prostitution, and the long, gracious arm of God, who reached into her life and set her free.
Evidently her speaking out is irking them – particularly at a time such as this when South Africa is reviewing the laws governing adult prostitution.
It’s bad press that they simply can’t afford.
Those seeking to have prostitution decriminalised are at pains to refute or downplay the link between human trafficking and prostitution. But the evidence is stacked against them.
According to the UN GIFT (Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking) report for 2008: “...the purpose of human trafficking is reported to be mainly sexual exploitation”.
Human trafficking is not a well-understood crime in South Africa, because we have yet to implement comprehensive legislation outlawing it. Thankfully, the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Bill should be enacted by the end of the year.
Essentially, human trafficking involves the recruitment, transportation and exploitation of victims.
RecruitmentRecruitment can be by force, though it’s usually by deception, as in Candice’s case.
“We met in a chat room. I wasn’t in a good place. I had just come out of a bad relationship, following a divorce. We spoke online for about four months.
“I was taken in by his concern for me: he seemed to really care. He asked me lots of probing questions, wanting to know if I had friends or family nearby, and all about my relationships.”
What Candice could never have known was that her Romeo was a recruiter for a Russian mobster. And all he was doing was assessing her vulnerability and establishing trust.
On the face of it, it’s hard to believe that an intelligent, educated, 36-year-old woman could be so easily duped. But in the context of her life story, it makes sense.
As a young child Candice was sexually molested by an uncle. The abuse went on for about a year. She was never able to tell her parents, whom she describes as proud well-to-do people in their small community. They also weren’t in the habit of articulating their love for their children. “I don’t recall my mother ever telling me she loved me.”
Marred by the abuse and “looking for answers”, Candice went on to study social work after school. But she never found answers there. So she tried marriage. Broken and unhappy, she stuck it out for 13 years for the sake of her children. When the emptiness within became too much, so she left her husband and children in search of herself.
It was then that her recruiter sniffed her out and began pursuing her. Receptive as she was to him, the loss and guilt of having given up custody of her children led to a nervous breakdown. It was the perfect opportunity for her recruiter to play the gallant rescuer.
“I agreed to let him fetch me from the clinic, to take me home.”
Transportation But instead of taking her home, he took her straight to a brothel in a Cape Town suburb. There Candice was locked up, beaten and drugged. She’s not sure how long this lasted – all she recalls is having eye drops frequently put in her eyes and “very bad trips”.
“I’m told it was probably liquid LSD.”
Sometime after that, she was given a makeover and presented with a bill for the cost of her hair, nails and make up. It was explained to her that she would have to “work it off”.
Exploitation“I remember my first client. He knew it was my first time... I used coke from day one. It helped.”
In no time, she would become an addict who was always in debt with her bosses. “They were making a lot of money out of me, but I always owed them: For drugs and for fines for being cheeky or refusing a booking.”
After about six months, Candice was allowed out of the house, though always accompanied by a “driver”, who was in fact a body guard paid to watch her rather than to protect her. “I wasn’t allowed to phone anyone.”
As a means of manipulation, she was allowed to see her children twice on the premises during the 13 months that she was in the brothel.
“It was horrible. I was dying.”
Candice was trained to be a dominatrix, who eventually had a reputation for the number of lashes she could take in an hour.
She tells me only because it is relevant.
“One Friday night I was beaten so badly that I couldn’t sit. So they sent me to this woman’s house to recover.”
There Candice got hold of the hostess’s cell phone and called her father, who contacted Straatwerk, a Christian NGO that reaches out to women in prostitution. (For more about Straatwerk see the April issue of Today Magazine.)
Candice regards her rescue as something of a miracle. “The following day a vehicle arrived at the house. The door bell rang. And a woman from Straatwerk said, ‘I’m here to fetch ******’ – and I walked out!”
The road to recovery – another story altogether – was harrowing. Candice came off drugs and surrendered her life to Jesus. “I couldn’t have done it alone. The people from Straatwerk literally loved me back to life.”
She weeps as she tells of all the Christians who have supported her, providing accommodation, clothing, money, groceries – and above all, acceptance.
It has been three years since she came to Christ and He’s all over her. The Word flows out of her like a well of living water and she radiates His grace.
Candice is struggling to stay composed. “You know when God puts something on your heart and you just can’t stop crying? That’s how I feel at the thought of prostitution becoming legalised. We cannot let it happen.”

This article was first published in the September 2009 issue of Today magazine.