00:00A court in Johannesburg sentenced seven Chinese nationals on Wednesday to a time of 20 years in prison, each for trafficking people from Malawi and forcing them to work at a factory in South Africa.
00:14Some family members of the accused rejected the accusations and say that they were wrongfully convicted.
00:20You know, there's never human trafficking, I tell you. This is just a factory. And they, yes, they treated those workers, those Malavians very bad because this boss, it's all his idea.
00:35You know, he doesn't allow them to get out this factory. He's just sending them orders. These take his orders. And then the orders is getting to those Malawian workers.
00:51The group was convicted on February 25 of trafficking 91 undocumented Malawian nationals from 2017 to 2019 to work at a cotton fabric factory in Village Deep, an industrial area in the south of Joharburg.
01:03They must know that we're taking these issues very serious. Government is working every day towards rooting out all these issues. Many of these companies, as I, two weeks back were in free state, and the expectation was that they are just going to pay money and bribe people, then they will get away with murder.
01:21Even on this case, even on this case, we have heard that the expectation was that they are going to bribe officials, they are going to bribe whoever, and they will get away with murder.
01:29Because it's what has been happening. And I want to say it again, the era of impunity has ended. We need to save and protect our country and protect our workers in this apartment.
01:39The Chinese nationals had been arrested on November 12, 2019, when police raided the factory and found the Malawian confined under inhumane conditions with armed guards controlling their movements.
01:50I'm in the mid-lustras.
01:54The Chinese nationals.
01:56The Chinese border, cops
02:08The Chinese nationals
02:08The Chinese nationals
02:09The Chinese nationals
02:10The Chinese internationals
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