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News24 reports that the South Gauteng High Court has heard allegations of how seven Chinese nationals, accused of human trafficking, treated employees at their Johannesburg factory.
Malawi national, Fraser Aufi, told the court on Monday that he and other employees at the factory were subjected to "long working hours, insults, assaults and violation of basic human rights" by the accused. The Department of Employment and Labour (DEL) advised: "Aufi told the court that, initially, the Chinese refused to open the gates until the police climbed over to free them, and how the accused tried to 'bribe' the police with food." The accused face 160 charges, including human trafficking, kidnapping and the violation of labour laws. They pleaded not guilty to all charges on 26 April They were arrested on 12 November 2019 following an operation by the DEL’s inspection and enforcement services branch in Gauteng, the police, the Department of Home Affairs and the Hawks. Allegedly the accused ran an illegal enterprise, called Beautiful City, in Village Deep, Johannesburg and trafficking undocumented immigrants into SA, subjecting them to forced labour from April 2017 until 2019. Ninety-one Malawian nationals, including children, were found in the factory. The accused are also accused of kidnapping some of their victims. According to the state, the accused deprived some of their victims of their freedom of movement by "locking the gates and posting armed security guards at the gates, thereby preventing the employees from leaving the premises".
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Jeanette Chabalala at News24
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