PREVENTION
The government made minimal efforts to prevent trafficking.The government approved the national action plan to combat trafficking and appointed TIPAC as the official anti-trafficking coordinating body. The government, however, did not conduct any educational campaigns or workshops to increase awareness of trafficking. The government did not take any measures to decrease the prevalence of child sex tourism in Solomon Islands. It also took no action to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts or forced labor in the country. The government did not provide anti-trafficking training or guidance for its diplomatic personnel. The Solomon Islands is not a party to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.

SOUTH AFRICA: Tier 2 
South Africa is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. South Africans constitute the largest number of victims within the country. South African children are recruited from poor rural areas to urban centers, such as Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, and Bloemfontein, where girls are subjected to sex trafficking and domestic servitude and boys are forced to work in street vending, food service, begging, criminal activities, and agriculture. Large numbers of children, including those with disabilities, are exploited in forced begging.The tradition of ukuthwala, the forced marriage of girls as young as 12 to adult men, is practiced in some remote villages in Eastern and Western Cape provinces, leaving these girls vulnerable to forced labor and sex slavery. Nigerian syndicates dominate the commercial sex trade in several provinces. In 2014, NGOs in Western Cape reported an increased number of Nigerian sex trafficking victims, many coerced through voodoo rituals. Local criminal rings organize child prostitution, Russian and Bulgarian crime syndicates operate in the Cape Town sex trade, and Chinese nationals coordinate the sex trafficking of Asian men and women. To a lesser extent, syndicates recruit South

African women to Europe and Asia, where some are forced into prostitution, domestic service, or drug smuggling. Law enforcement reported continued coercion of sex trafficking victims via forced drug use, which compounded difficulties in rescuing victims.
Officials acknowledged an increased presence of Chinese victims, but Thai women remained the largest identified foreign victim group.Women and girls from Brazil; Eastern Europe; East, South and Southeast Asia; and neighboring African countries are recruited for legitimate work in South Africa, but sometimes subjected to forced prostitution, domestic servitude, or forced labor in the service sector or taken to Europe for similar purposes. Foreign and South African LGBT persons are subjected to sex trafficking. For the third consecutive year, foreign male forced labor victims were discovered aboard fishing vessels in South Africa’s territorial waters; in 2014, NGOs reported an increased number of victims—10 to 15 victims each month—disembarking in Cape Town.Young men and boys from neighboring countries migrate to South Africa for farm work; some are subjected to forced labor and subsequently arrested and deported as illegal immigrants. Forced labor is reportedly used in fruit and vegetable farms across South Africa and vineyards in the Western Cape. Government and NGOs report an increase in Pakistanis and Bangladeshis subjected to bonded labor in businesses owned by their nationals. Official complicity—including amongst police—in trafficking crimes remained a serious concern. Some well-known brothels that were previously locations of sex trafficking operated with officials’ tacit support.
The Government of South Africa does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so.The government maintained modest anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts—convicting three and initiating prosecution of an additional 19 sex traffickers in 2014.The Department of Social Development (DSD) continued its oversight of victim shelters, which assisted 41 victims. For the second consecutive year, however, the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Act (PACOTIP), signed in July 2013, was not in force because implementing regulations had not been finalized—leaving South Africa without adequate anti-trafficking prohibitions and impeding overall efforts to combat the crime. The Department of Justice Victim Support Directorate (DOJ/ VSD) oversaw the development of regulations necessary to enact the legislation and coordinated trainings for prosecutors and investigative police in several provinces. The government lacked formal procedures for properly identifying trafficking victims among vulnerable groups, including illegal migrants and women in prostitution. The government failed to systematically address labor trafficking offenses or to successfully prosecute any major international syndicates responsible for much of the sex trafficking in the country. A serious lack of capacity and widespread corruption among the police force stymied progress in anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SOUTH AFRICA:
Promulgate and implement anti-trafficking regulations to  bring

PACOTIP into effect; increase awareness among government officials of their responsibilities under the anti-trafficking bill and related provisions under the Sexual Offenses and Children’s Amendment Acts, especially among South African Police Service (SAPS) officials and Department of Labor (DOL) personnel; investigate and prosecute officials suspected of trafficking complicity; verify law enforcement and social service providers use a victim- centered approach when interacting with potential victims and recognize initial consent is irrelevant; prosecute employers who use forced labor; adequately screen for trafficking victimization among vulnerable groups, including potential deportees and women in prostitution; replicate the coordinated anti-trafficking law enforcement and victim referral mechanisms of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and Western Cape in all provinces; provide interpreters to assist victims in obtaining care, cooperating with law enforcement, and testifying in court; extend the availability of drug rehabilitation services for trafficking victims to all high-risk areas; certify or establish additional shelters for the assistance of male victims; and institute formal procedures to compile national statistics on traffickers prosecuted and victims assisted.