Employment and Labour on trial of seven Chinese nationals charged with human trafficking and child labour

Trial of seven Chinese nationals charged with human trafficking and child labour postponed as two defence witnesses fail to attend 

The trial of seven Chinese nationals charged with human trafficking and child labour stalled once against as two defence witnesses failed to attend proceedings in the Gauteng Division of the High Court (Johannesburg) today. 

Counsel representing the accused J. Kruger told the Court that one witness was held up in Limpopo Province on private business and the other one was now afraid to testify. 

It also emerged in Court before the start of proceedings that one of the accused not lined-up to testify had approached the Prosecutor, Valencia Dube informing her that she wanted to take a stand and testify. 

Kruger said he was worried about delays in the matter which he said some cannot be avoided and beyond “our control”. He told Court that he, “wants to sit down with all the accused to deal with issues of conflict of interest”. 

The accused in the matter are: Kevin Tsao Shu-Uei, Chen Hui, Qin Li, Jiaqing Zhou, Ma Biao, Dai Junying, and Zhang Zhilian. The accused are facing schedule six offences. 

They are facing counts of human trafficking, contravention of Immigration Act, kidnapping, pointing a firearm, debt bondage, benefitting from the services of a victim of trafficking, conduct that facilitates trafficking, illegally assisting person(s) to remain in South Africa, and failure to comply with duties of an employer. 

The Chinese nationals were arrested on 12 November 2019 in a joint operation carried out at their premises of a company called Beautiful City Pty Ltd based at Village Deep in Johannesburg. The joint inspection blitz was carried out by the Department of Employment and Labour’s Inspection and Enforcement Services (IES) branch together with the South African Police Services (SAPS)/ Hawks Unit and the Department of Home Affairs. 

The joint operation uncovered illegal immigrants some of whom were minors working under horror conditions and kept in the locked premises of a factory called Beautiful City. The factory produced cotton fibre sheets. 

Five of the accused are out on bail and the other two are in custody for violating their bail conditions – by trying to skip the country. 

The matter has been postponed for further defence evidence on September 25. 

For more information, contact: 
Teboho Thejane 
Departmental Spokesperson 
Cell: 082 697 0694  
E-mail: Teboho.Thejane@labour.gov.za