VZCZCXRO4227
RR RUEHDU RUEHJO
DE RUEHSA #0224/01 0331446
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 021446Z FEB 10
FM AMEMBASSY PRETORIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1092
INFO RUEHTO/AMEMBASSY MAPUTO 6232
RUEHMB/AMEMBASSY MBABANE 4615
RUEHTN/AMCONSUL CAPE TOWN 7538
RUEHDU/AMCONSUL DURBAN 1603
RUEHJO/AMCONSUL JOHANNESBURG 9893
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PRETORIA 000224
SIPDIS
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL PGOV PREF PHUM KTIP SF
SUBJECT: WORLD CUP ANTI-TIP INITIATIVES BY SOUTH AFRICAN
NGOS
REF: A. 09 PRETORIA 2578
B. 09 PRETORIA 2229
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Summary
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1. At a January 25-27 "train the trainers" workshop on
trafficking in persons (TIP), organized by World Hope South
Africa (WHSA) under a grant from State/GTIP (ref A),
participants from a dozen civil society groups prepared to
step up their anti-TIP outreach in advance of the mid-2010
World Cup in South Africa. Initiatives ranged from poster
campaigns and ongoing school visits, to programs to occupy
children safely during the games, volunteer supervision of
public fan parks, and even a new victim hotline. As this
partial sampling from one province demonstrates, South
African NGOs are gearing up to protect the potentially
vulnerable, in a wide array of localized initiatives. End
Summary.
---------------------
2010-Focused Outreach
---------------------
2. Anthony Ambrose of World Vision South Africa (WVSA) said
his organization was active in six of the country's nine
provinces, mainly in rural areas. WVSA was involved in an
array of multi-level partnerships, such as a children's
sector network (SANTAC) and the Child Protection Committee
chaired by the Department of Social Development (DSD) which
had formulated the official plan for child protection during
World Cup. Ambrose noted that while the SAG had undertaken
to provide security at stadia hosting the games, the informal
fan parks were left to NGOs to protect. (Note: post security
officer confirmed that while he expected a visible police
presence at any large events for general security and crowd
control, the police had never made mention of anti-TIP
measures at those arenas. End note.) A consortium of civil
society groups -- UNICEF, National Association of Child Care
Workers (NACCW), Childline, Child Welfare, Nelson Mandela
Children's Fund (NMCF), and one or two others -- had formed
to prepare plans for "child friendly spaces" during the
soccer games. Each of the soccer cities was assigned to an
NGO as the lead agency to coordinate protection efforts (e.g.
Polokwane to Childline, Soweto to World Vision, etc.). WVSA
would link this World Cup plan to its ongoing neighborhood
watch work, wherein community committees monitor the
wellbeing and whereabouts of orphan headed households and
other children considered vulnerable.
3. Robin Davis of the Tshwane Leadership Foundation (TLF)
described how TLF had led the formation of an
anti-trafficking coalition in the province of Gauteng (whose
main cities are Johannesburg and Pretoria), launched last
August to emulate those like Mpulimo (see below) and its
peers in Western Cape (Cape Town) and Kwa Zulu Natal
(Durban). The coalition's first focus was on the 2010 World
Cup. It had laid out an implementation plan to raise
awareness throughout downtown Pretoria, walking the city grid
block by block to target caretakers of buildings, budget
hotels, hair salons, taverns, and shopping centers. The
group was flagging suspicious activities (e.g. persons
milling around entries to ostensibly unused buildings), had
befriended street prostitutes for information, and had
identified locations which could be hotspots during the games.
4. "Captain" Magdeline Phore told how the Salvation Army had
sent priests and volunteers to Germany to learn lessons from
World Cup 2006, and those emissaries had returned to share
the information in South Africa. The group was planning to
mount big-screen football broadcasts in churches, where
Qmount big-screen football broadcasts in churches, where
teachers would also conduct classes over the extended school
break during the games, and lay people were being trained to
supervise kids' clubs and youth programs. Having identified
particular "party streets" where youth might fall prey to
traffickers, volunteers would be present to keep a watchful
eye, talk to youth, and try to keep girls and boys safe.
Since last year the Salvation Army had expanded its HIV/AIDS
peer education to include TIP, especially in rural areas
where the young could be especially vulnerable to fake job
offers. The group also offered support to such job seekers,
helping them to screen employers to ensure jobs were
legitimate. TIP was now a theme in all of the group's
outreach events, with a focus on prevention.
5. On January 27, while the workshop was ongoing, the
Salvation Army launched a new hotline number, 0800-RESCUE, to
PRETORIA 00000224 002 OF 002
assist TIP victims and receive tip-offs on trafficking. The
line would be staffed by speakers of all 11 South African
national languages. (Note: The line is currently not/not
staffed in Portuguese, French, or native languages of
adjacent countries for foreign victims. End note.) Contact
was possible visa phone, fax, mail, or mobile phone text
messaging. The number would be added to South African Police
posters and materials.
6. Collette Bezuidenhout of the Girl Guides (local
equivalent of U.S. Girl Scouts) described how its 8,000
members nationwide were engaged in anti-TIP education, to the
extent that a new anti-trafficking badge had been created for
significant achievement. Outreach was age-tailored, ranging
from teddy bear talks and "stranger danger" lessons with
small kids to peer education among teens by guides over 17
years of age. The group's networks spanned urban, suburban,
and rural communities. The organization was working on
designing anti-TIP posters and games.
------------------------------------------
Ongoing Anti-TIP Efforts (2010 and Beyond)
------------------------------------------
7. Given Lekhuleni of Amazing Grace had recently moved from
its well-known shelter in Mpumalanga near Mozambique (ref B)
to assist with a sister shelter in Johannesburg. Since 2005,
Amazing Grace has been engaged in victims' assistance,
awareness raising, and lobbying for the rights of women and
children. Last year it launched a "Red Light" anti-TIP
campaign in partnership with a group called Junior Citizens.
Amazing Grace is an anchor member of the 'Mpumlimo'
(Mpumalanga-Limpopo-Mozambique) task team of regional NGOs
against TIP -- a model of cross-border collaboration in an
area especially prone to trafficking. Mpumlimo was in the
process of expanding to include counterparts from Swaziland.
It was working closely with the DSD on provincial anti-TIP
planning for 2010 and beyond, and with the Human Sciences
Research Council (HSRC) on their EC-funded research for the
National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) which leads the
government's anti-TIP efforts.
8. Babalwa Makawula was from the New Life center in the
difficult Johannesburg districts of Hillbrow and Berea, which
opened in April 2005 as a drop-in and rehabilitation center
for "women in trouble" and to help sex workers find a way out
of prostitution. Working with the ILO, New Life was
conducting "day and night" outreach with psychosocial
support; with the SAG's Department of Health it was holding
peer education seminars on HIV/AIDS. New Life was looking to
weave anti-TIP messages into these programs.
9. Xenia Swanepoel represented Open Mind, a ministry-based
organization initially working with the homeless and later
expanding to assisting prostitutes and lately TIP victims.
Security concerns had caused it to suspend its direct brothel
contacts, but it continued it public advocacy role, speaking
at conferences and public fora.
--------------------------------
Networking, More than Curriculum
--------------------------------
10. Comment: Overall, the workshop was more impressive as a
networking platform than for the training itself. WHSA will
forward to G/TIP its training material. Poloff observed
breakout group presentations on root causes of TIP and TIP's
effects on individuals, families, communities, and countries
-- fairly predictable discussions, so not reported here.
(Note: G/TIP will be gratified that its tier ranking system
Q(Note: G/TIP will be gratified that its tier ranking system
has an impact: without mentioning the TIP Report by name,
NGOs included among the country effects the negative image of
being "poorly graded" by the rest of the world. End Note.)
In another session, participants discussed a "walkabout"
exercise in which they had taken note of risks and threats in
their neighborhoods, as well as resources for safety and
help. There were about 15 participants in the workshop,
which WHSA said it would have to duplicate because of being
doubly oversubscribed. End Comment.
GIPS