Chinese-owned Joburg sweatshop workers held prisoner, court hears

In 2018, Maxwell Kamanga left his home town of Dedza, in rural Malawi, and boarded a bus bound for Johannesburg.

For the ambitious 24 year old, the lure of a better life was too enticing to resist.

But his dreams soon turned to dread when he was recruited into what is now believed to have been an illegal sweatshop and became a pawn in an alleged human trafficking ring.

This was Kamanga’s evidence on the stand of the High Court in Johannesburg this week when the trial of the seven Chinese nationals accused of running the operation got underway.

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“That dream you had when you brought a bus ticket to South Africa, what has happened to it?” state advocate Valencia Dube asked Kamanga on Wednesday.

“It’s disappeared,” he said. The accused – Kevin Tsao ShuUei, Chen Hui, Qin Li, Jiaqing Zhou, Ma Biao, Dai Junying and Zhang Zhilian – were arrested in 2019 after the Hawks swooped on them at a factory trading under the name Beautiful City Pty Ltd in Johannesburg’s Village Deep.

According to the indictment, the accused had a total of 91 undocumented Malawian foreign nationals – among them children– working in the factory, where they stand accused of having contravened a raft of labour laws.

They are facing a staggering 160 counts of, among others, human trafficking, debt bondage, benefitting from the services of a victim of trafficking, conduct that facilitates trafficking, kidnapping, pointing a firearm, knowingly employing illegal foreigners, illegally assisting people to remain in SA and failing to comply with the duties of an employer.

Their trial started on Monday, with the accused all pleading not guilty and Kamanga, 26, taking the stand as the state’s first witness.

He continued his evidence on Wednesday, when he told the court his plan had originally been to find work here so he could save up enough money to further his education.

But after a friend convinced Kamanga to take up a job with him at Beautiful City, he said, he became trapped in a cycle of exploitation.

He detailed the harrowing 11 months he spent at Beautiful City before it was raided – saying he and his co-workers lived and worked on the company premises and were not allowed to leave, with armed guards stationed at the entrance. The only shop they were allowed to visit was run by one of the accused from the company premises.

And, Kamanga said, this was where he ended up spending almost all of the paltry R440 he got paid each week. They weren’t allowed cellphones or radios, he said, and they had to work Monday through Sunday – even when they were sick.

He recalled how one of his co-workers had lost the tips of his two fingers after his hand became caught in one of the machines they were operating. Eventually, he said, his friend’s only option was to “escape” as a stowaway on a delivery truck.

Under cross-examination from defence attorney Jannie Kruger, Kamanga on Wednesday faced a barrage of questions around why he had not tried to escape. He said he had considered it but that he didn’t have anywhere to go.

bernadettew@citizen.co.za