South African move on child trafficking.

The announcement yesterday that parents would have another nine months to comply with new regulations for travelling into and out of South Africa with their children has been met with a collective sigh of relief.

The new requirements, which had been due to come into effect on 1 October, state that parents, regardless of nationality, must produce unabridged birth certificates for children travelling with them and that one parent travelling with a child must have the written consent of the other parent or a court order granting them legal guardianship.

When the regulations were announced in late May, South Africa's Home Affairs Ministry described them as "for the safety of children, including their protection from child trafficking, abduction and kidnapping".

However, migration experts have questioned whether South Africa has a significant child trafficking problem and if it does, whether stricter regulations are the best way to deal with it.

"I think the biggest question is whether the trafficking of children through formal ports of entry has been identified as a big problem and I haven't seen any data to suggest that," said Chandre Gould, a senior researcher with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) who has researched the role of human trafficking in Cape Town's sex work industry.

While South Africa is often described as a major hub for the trafficking of victims from within the country, the region and beyond, the extent to which these claims are backed up by evidence is limited.

The often fine line between human trafficking and migrant smuggling that takes place at South Africa's borders has further confused the issue. For example, undocumented Zimbabwean migrants living and working in South Africa, sometimes pay taxi drivers known as malaishas to smuggle their children across the border. While most malaishas do just that, there are indications that some traffic the children they are transporting into forced labour or sex work, although such cases are very difficult to prove.

Anti-human trafficking law not yet in effect

New legislation to counter human trafficking was signed into law by President Jacob Zuma in July 2013, but the necessary implementing regulations have not been finalized and as a result, the law has yet to come into effect. Gould pointed out that one of the requirements of the new law was the establishment of a database that would track trafficking cases. In the absence of such a database, no figures are available as to...