APA-Johannesburg (South Africa) South Africa’s online content regulator said the hefty sentence slapped on convicted sex trafficker and child rapist Gerhard Ackerman on Monday should serve as a warning to all paedophiles that the government is serious about tackling sexual abuse in the country.
Ackerman was handed 12 life sentences when he appeared in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Monday where Judge Mohamed Ismail sentenced him for the more than 700 charges he had been found guilty of.
The Film and Publication Board (FPB) applauded the hefty sentence handed to Ackerman, saying it would serve as a deterrent to other paedophiles.
“We warmly welcome the heavy sentence and hope it sends a strong warning to other offenders out there that we, together with the law enforcement agencies and other partners, will sniff them out of the corners wherever they are hiding,” FPB chief executive Mashilo Boloka said.
He added: “We shall never rest until each one of them are behind bars.”
The FPB, which is part of the Ministry of Communication and Digital Technologies, played a crucial role in conducting analyses of the images found in possession of Ackerman, Boloka said.
Ackerman ran a sex abuse ring he ran in Johannesburg where he targeted young teenage boys from poor and troubled families.
Using social media he would lure the boys – mostly aged between 14 and 16 – with promises for work at his “massage parlour,” which was effectively a front for his sex abuse business.
After convincing the boys to work as masseurs, Ackerman trafficked them to a brothel that he ran, from where they would be sexually groomed and sold for sexual services to his clients.
JN/APA