Hon Chairperson, hon Ministers and hon members of this august House, comrades and friends, I thank the ANC for allowing me to speak in this Parliament. I do so feeling very emotional because I know that many comrades paid a heavy price for us to be able to stand here today. It is necessary that we should not forget where we come from because it will help us to be focused on our work and to ensure that we protect the gains of the struggle of the congress movement.
The ANC supports this Bill. The ANC, as the vanguard of the rights of the people, has pronounced on human rights long before the United Nations did in the Africans' Claims in the late 1920s. As the ANC, we find it necessary to protect our own citizens and, of course, those who find themselves in our country because of the demon and the peril caused by those who like to steal human beings for enslaving them in various kinds of evil practices, including hard, unpaid and forced labour and, sometimes, making them sex slaves.
This often happens to the poorest of the poor and to women and children in poorer townships and rural communities. Our country has an obligation concerning the trafficking in persons in terms of international agreements.
This Bill creates the offence of trafficking in persons and other offences associated with trafficking in persons. It will provide for penalties that may be imposed in respect of such offences. It will also provide for measures to protect and assist victims. It will also provide for the co- ordinated implementation, application and administration of the Act and help prevent these nasty activities within and across the borders of the Republic of South Africa.
The Constitution of our land enshrines the right to human dignity and the right to freedom and security of persons. The ANC, as the caring movement governing this country, cannot stand by and allow its citizens to be treated in a cruel, inhuman and degrading way.
Our children have a right to be protected from malpractice, neglect, abuse and degradation. The ANC, that old, caring organisation, will continue to look for means and laws to protect its citizens. Viva, ANC, viva! [Applause.]