Thunzalite walk against against human trafficking – News24

Members of the Thunzalite Gifts organisation, in Langa, marched against human trafficking on Saturday 15 October to raise awareness in the community.

The walk started at Guga Sthebe Cultural Centre and went through the community.

The demonstrators carried placards and sang while others distributed pamphlets to the community. Some of the placards were written “No To Human Trafficking”, “We Are Not For Sale”, “No Forced Prostitution” etc.

Thunzalite Gifts is an organisation that empowers and conducts awarenesses in the communities against human trafficking.

Founder of the organisation Nomthunzi Jacobs described the walk as an annual event. She stated that she started the initiative four years ago after she noticed an increase in the number of people, including the children who were kidnapped in the communities.

She said people are kidnapped for various reasons.

“Teenagers are the most vulnerable people. They are kidnapped for various reasons including prostitution, mutilating body parts, drug trafficking, etc. It happens on both genders,” said Jacobs.

She said people have the perception that human trafficking only happened in the big cities which is not the case. “People are kidnapped everywhere,” she said.

She urged the people to report missing people and other wrongdoings in their areas to the police.

Jacobs said she intends to extend her services to the neighbouring areas to empower and educate them about this bad activity.

Resident Liziwe Bokwe described the walk as a great initiative citing that she wished the organisation could continue doing great work.

“I think its timing this year is perfect because there are many people that go missing in our communities every day. The community needs to take these kinds of initiatives seriously.

“We also need to teach our children not to talk or take anything from strangers,” said Bokwe.