Ms Kohler-Barnard stated that as a parliamentarian she did not believe that the issue had, prior to this stage, received sufficient attention from the South African police, although South Africa had, just days ago, made its first conviction for human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation. This conviction was secured by using racketeering laws related to sexual exploitation to convict a couple, a South African and a Thai national. South Africa's Human Trafficking bill was only recently introduced in Parliament. She noted this in light of point 11 of the resolution which stated that member Parliaments had to be more proactive in combating trafficking by drawing up laws to do so, criminalizing trafficking and including prevention, protection and assistance measures. The two men arrested were due to be sentenced on May 10 and faced a maximum sentence of life imprisonment or R100 million fine. They had recruited women from Thailand who were kept in a brothel on the east coast of South Africa. Therefore, it was noted that although human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation could currently draw long sentences in South Africa, it was not necessarily the case with human trafficking for other reasons. It was hoped that the new legislation would address this.