–Granting bail to a person who has sold an underage girl into sex slavery is wrong and diabolic
Lesotho’s courts ought to engage in some serious soul searching. They need to seriously ask themselves if their actions are not encouraging more crime and rewarding criminals at the expense of victims.
Yes, bail should not be punitive. But it should equally not be gratuitously granted as we are seeing in some serious cases coming before our courts.
Consider the heart-wrenching case of a 49-year-old woman from Mokhotlong, ‘Mathabelang Qhana, who was apprehended after evading law enforcement since 2017.
Qhana allegedly trafficked her underage niece to neighbouring South Africa in 2017, when the victim was just 16 years old or possibly even less.
The niece was then handed over to an Indian man, who kept her as a sex slave while Qhana received regular payments from the captor.
The young victim’s ordeal finally ended a year later when she fell ill, prompting her captor to abandon her at some secluded place.
South African police then found a young, undocumented, and severely ill girl wandering about their country. There is no better example of a crude and evil case of sex trafficking.
The girl narrated her harrowing ordeal to the authorities, who then shared the information with their counterparts in Lesotho, prompting a manhunt for the perpetrator, Qhana. Qhana fled to South Africa once she became aware she was wanted.
Qhana, the fugitive, returned to Lesotho only in late December 2024. The police were alerted to her presence leading to her arrest and detention. By divine grace she is languishing in a correctional facility as she could not afford bail.
The fact that she was considered a good candidate for a measly M1500 bail despite the gravity of her offence is not only perplexing, it is heartless. It completely defies all legal logic. It disregards and underplays the trauma of the victim that she was put through by the very same person who should have been her guardian. In any event, why should a person who has run away from justice – over a very serious crime as this one for such a long period of time – even be considered for bail. The fact that someone has been a fugitive in a serious crime should automatically be an aggravating circumstance, disqualifying them from bail. But in Lesotho, some of our judicial officials seem to live in a parallel universe. They either don’t care, or lack the gumption to appreciate the horrific consequences of their actions.
What message is sent when a person who has committed an offence as serious as selling an underage girl as a sex slave gets treated with such kids’ gloves.
Isn’t this the archetypal case of a person who must be detained and stand trial while in custody? Since Qhana had already fled from her crime for years, what guarantee is there that she won’t flee again if released on bail.
And what of those hard core criminals who simply afford bail and then walk back to their criminal ways never to return to have their cases completed? Hasn’t this society seen and had a lot of that already because of the deficiencies in our criminal justice system? With the lackadaisical attitudes of our courts towards serious crime, should we even be surprised that Gender Based Violence (GBV) and violence against children are our country’s other byword?
It is understandable that the primary purpose of bail is to ensure the accused’s presence in court without necessarily depriving them of liberty during their pending cases. But it is also true that there are cases whose seriousness should preclude bail.
Which is why in South Africa, higher schedule offences preclude bail unless the accused can prove exceptional circumstances or that it is in the interests of justice that bail be granted. Very sadly, there is no such in Lesotho. We have seen many persons accused of the most heinous of cases walking away on gratuitous bail terms.
We cannot think of any more heinous crime than that of an adult who sells an under-age girl – under their guardianship – into sexual slavery for financial gain. It’s diabolical. It’s inhuman. It’s evil. And to say that such an evil person should walk away on such measly bail terms is unacceptable. Moreso, if this is a person who already had been a fugitive for many years.
When considering bail, the courts should focus on the gravity of the alleged crime, the motivation behind it, and the impact on the victim(s).
Even though a person is innocent until proven guilty, there may be circumstances that warrant detaining a suspect until the completion of their trial. This is something Lesotho’s courts have consistently failed to do.
It is only by the grace of God that some of these hardcore criminals fail to pay bail and remain in custody. But can a society wanting to deter crime exist on the mere hope that criminals suspected of heinous offences will fail to raise bail money and stay in custody? Nope!!! Hope is never a strategy.
Lesotho’s courts have persistently shown a tendency to disregard the rights of victims while propping up those of criminals. Victims of sex trafficking or rape endure intolerable emotional, psychological, and physical damage that is – in most cases – impossible to repair.
Their suffering and the gravity of the offences committed against them should be paramount in bail decisions. In the case of young girls, the courts must be fully aware it is easy for perpetrators to intimidate them as witnesses. In many instances, some of the girls rely on the very perpetrators for sustenance. Granting the perpetrators bail is thus as good as letting them walk and killing the cases against them.
We have even had a case in this country in which the conviction of a man who repeatedly raped a disabled girl under his care was acquitted simply because he was charged under the “wrong law”. If such judicial clumsiness continues, then there is neither hope nor a future for young women in this country.
It’s perhaps high time society becomes more pro-active in judging the judges.
