A Nigerian man convicted of human trafficking, rape and sexual exploitation in South Africa was set to hear his fate in sentencing proceedings at the Benoni magistrate’s court on Thursday.
Forty-year-old Augustine Omini Oboni was found guilty of human trafficking, two counts of rape, statuary rape, sexual exploitation, kidnapping and keeping a brothel, National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson for the Gauteng north region Lumka Mahanjana said in a statement.
“A 12-year-old minor was kept in a flat in Sunnyside, Pretoria for three months by Oboni. During this period, he fed her with drugs and forced her to sleep with five to six men a day,” Mahanjana said.
Oboni was arrested in 2016 and denied bail.
According to police, the 12-year-old child was walking to a nearby park to meet friends when she encountered an unknown woman who convinced her to go to Oboni’s flat in Sunnyside.
Pretoria News reported in 2016 that the girl testified to sleeping in the flat with the unknown woman, with the understanding that she would return home the following day. However when she woke up the next morning, Oboni was sitting on the side of the bed and the woman had disappeared.
Oboni then demanded that the child make him money by prostituting herself. When she refused, he assaulted her and raped her repeatedly. He allegedly locked her up in the flat, sometimes without food and supplied her with drugs to get her addicted so he could control her.
The child eventually succumbed and worked as a prostitute, handing the money she received to Oboni. She managed to escape in December, two months after she was abducted, and Obono was arrested the same day.
He said he was in South Africa as an asylum seeker and self-employed as a hair-stylist in Pretoria.
Source:- iol
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