To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
A mother who sold her young daughter to a rogue healer for her eyes and skin has been jailed for life.
The disappearance of Joshlin Smith, 6, has shocked South Africa after it emerged her mum, Racquel ‘Kelly’ Smith, had sold the little girl to a traditional healer.
Joshlin, who has a fair complexion and turquoise eyes, has not been seen since February when she went missing from outside her home in Saldanha Bay near Cape Town.
As twisted details emerged in court, witnesses told how the mum had sold her for £800, and that she would have allegedly settled for £200, MailOnline reports.
Smith, 35, was sentenced over kidnapping and trafficking together with her boyfriend, Jacquen Appollis and a friend, Steveno van Rhyn.
A search continues for little Joshlin, whose devastated grandmother pleaded with the depraved mother to bring her back ‘or tell me where she is.’
Joshlin’s granny, Amanda Smith-Daniels, who now cares for her sibling, told Newzroom Afrika: ‘I don’t feel that any sentence they get will bring my grandchild back.’
She asked: ‘How do you sleep [and] live with yourself?’
A social worker revealed during the trial that Joshlin had been living in neglect.
Lorential Lombaard, a neighbour and Smith’s friend, told the court that the mother had confessed before the disappearance she had sold Joshlin to a ‘sangoma,’ a traditional healer also known as ‘soul doctors.’
The neighbour said she later spotted the mum packing a bag of clothes for Joshlin before she climbed into a car with her and a woman she believes to be the healer.
Joshlin’s teacher claimed that Smith said during a search that the little girl was already ‘on a ship, inside a container, and they were on the way to West Africa.’
The court heard how Joshlin went to live with family friends after her mother, who has a history of drug abuse since her teens, was abusive while high.
The friends tried to adopt her to give her a better life, but the parents allegedly blocked it.
Family friend Natasha Andrews, who knew Joshlin, shared a video of her in court because ‘so many people…don’t know what Joshlin sounds like.’
Joshlin’s teacher said the girl was ‘very tidy’ and that she plays her favourite gospel song, God Will Work It Out, at the start of each school day to her friends, who keep asking about her fate.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.