North Gauteng High Court judge Justice Bill Prinsloo dismissed an urgent interim application to block the repatriation of 8 Zimbabwean children who have been held by the Department of Social Development in South Africa since November last year.
In his judgement Justice Pinsloo said there were serious concerns over how the children arrived in South Africa, unaccompanied and without documents. The children were found in a truck which stopped in Rustenburg on 12 November 2017. The truck driver was arrested and appeared on charges of human trafficking and contravening parts of the Immigration Act. He was granted bail and is next due in court on 19 March 2018. The children were travelling in a truck to join their parents in Cape Town for the Christmas holiday.
Justice Pinsloo also questioned the actions of the parents who allowed their children to travel from Zimbabwe in a truck with strangers. Said Justice Pinsloo:
The fact that they allowed their children – if it is their children, which is open to doubt – to travel to travel without documentation in the company of strange other adults, at night, hidden at the back of a truck ostensibly from Beit Bridge to the Cape, leaves one with some doubt […] about the suitability of these applicants to simply take possession of these eight children.
More: ENCA
Back to top