Tsireledzani ("Let's Protect Each Other")

The Tsireledzani action plan is based on three pillars: prevention, victim support, and response. As a first step, a baseline study was conducted to identify levels of awareness of specific groups in source, transit, and destination areas, as well as how these groups receive messages. There was also a review and analysis of previous communication campaigns.

According to organisers, making people understand that human trafficking is a reality and that it can affect anyone is one of the key messages of the awareness-raising campaigns. The pilot campaigns focused primarily on community members because they are considered crucial in terms of prevention and self-protection. The campaigns will also be directed at other relevant audiences, such as the entertainment and tourism sector, the transport sector, public officials, and civil society.

Specific communication tools used in the campaigns include: a radio drama series based on the adaptation of trafficking stories; the production of art works, poems, and "industrial theatre" representations on and about human trafficking; production and distribution of posters, flyers, stickers, and leaflets; and the launch of a South African government web site on human trafficking. A learning kit for children aged 15-17 (both in school and out of school) and their teachers and facilitators was also produced.

Through a partner organisation, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the project is implementing capacity building with government officials, non-governmental organisations, and media. This training is designed to prevent trafficking from South Africa, identify trafficked persons, improve the standard of physical protection and direct assistance to victims of trafficking in the country, and increase the number of trafficking cases investigated and prosecuted by law enforcement and justice officials.

Capacity-building workshops have been designed to ensure that the identified government departments develop the capacity to train social workers, health, law enforcement, immigration, labour, and justice officials on the prevention and combating of human trafficking, as well as the protection and assistance of victims. Organisers say the training content imparts basic awareness and an intermediate level of competency for to identify, protect, and directly assist trafficked persons. At the end of the capacity development process a comprehensive and inter-sectoral National Curriculum on human trafficking will have been published.

Click here to visit the Tsireledzani website.

Human trafficking

According to the baseline research, there is a lot of misconception around human trafficking in South Africa. Its definition is often not well understood and most people tend to think that the problem concerns only foreigners, and in particular women looking for easy money. It is also not well understood that victims of human trafficking many times end up in other forms of labour exploitation than the sex trade.