The state prosecutor in the Joshlin Smith trial says the case is the first of its kind in South Africa based on the set of facts.

Adv. Zelda Swanepoel has begun delivering closing arguments in the kidnapping and human trafficking trial in the Western Cape High court sitting in Saldhana Bay.

The girl’s mother Kelly Smith, Jacquen Appollis and Steveno van Rhyn are on trial in relation to the child’s disappearance from her Middelpos home in Saldanha Bay in February last year.

Swanepoel says in this case, because the child is still missing, the victim cannot say why this was done, whether it was for sexual or labour exploitation.

She says, “In this instance we have a child who is solely reliant in her parents and the caregivers or everything. Now if we commodify that child and we sell that child we take her away from her parents and give the child to someone else. That person would now have the ultimate control over that victim. In this instance, because of the age of Joshlin. She was only six-years-old.”

LIVE STREAM: Joshlin Smith kidnapping trial: