Tears and heartbroken by the tragic story of the South African girl sold by her mother

A video clip of a smiling Joshlin Smith who was six years old when she disappeared in South Africa a year ago, most people were crying in court.

A drug addict was believed to have sold her for money at a hearing in Saldanha Bay near Cape Town before Joshlin's mother's sentence was announced.

Racquel Smith, also known as Kelly Smith, was convicted earlier this month for kidnapping and trafficking of her daughter. The 35-year-old mother of three was found guilty along with boyfriend Jacquen Appollis and their friend Steveno Van Rhyn.

Even the court interpreter couldn't stop her tears when she translated the victim's impact statement into English.

A court official read the statements first in Afrikaans, the language spoken in the impoverished Middlepos informal settlement in the Gulf of Saldania where Joshlin lives.

In her own words, Joshlin's grandmother, a family friend who wanted to adopt Joshlin, her teacher talked about their pain and confusion, and how her mother sold her pain and confusion.

During the trial, a witness called it a traditional therapist, known in South Africa as “Sangoma”, who wanted Joshlin to be “her eyes and skin”.

A local pastor also testified that he had heard Smith talk about selling her children for rand 20,000 ($1,100; £850) but would have been willing to accept the lower number of $275.

“How do you sleep [and] Live with yourself?

Smith and her concurrent defendants refused to withdraw their stance during a six-week trial that began in March and held at a community center in Saldanha to allow a wider community to participate in the litigation process.

But Joshlin's mother sobbed uncontrollably when she heard the statement and watched the video clip on Wednesday.

Joshlin's teacher Edna Maart describes the little girl as a quiet student, “very neat”.

She said she asked her whereabouts every day at Joshlin's classmate every day.

She said don't forget her, and she said that the class listens to her favorite gospel song God will solve this problem every time she goes to school. It was also aired in Wednesday's Tears Court.

Until today, no one knows what happened to Joshlin.

Her disappearance on February 19, 2024 caused shock waves across the country. Bianca Van Aswegen is a criminologist and national coordinator for missing children in South Africa, likening it to Madeleine McCann, a British girl who disappeared in Portugal in 2007.

Madeleine disappeared from a vacation apartment in Praia da Luz in Algarve, and her she is one of the most eye-catching, unresolved cases of missing persons in the world.

Ms. Van Aswegen told the BBC that despite the relief of the three’s belief in Joshlin’s case, “The truth is, no one knows where Joshlin is, I think it’s a big question that South Africa is still asking”.

Photos of Joshlin's troubled life appear during the trial – she gained a better understanding of her personality at the hearing before the verdict.

She was born in October 2017 and Smith and her former partner Jose Emke, who collapsed on Wednesday and had to be relocated by the court.

Their second child – both she and her 11-year-old brother have suffered neglect, according to a social worker who testified during the trial.

Growing up, Kelly Smith lived with her grandmother and has been abusing drugs since she was 15 – often abused her and her children at high places, social workers said.

A report prepared by a social worker for the sentencing hearing depicts a distinct picture of Smith's drug addiction when Joshlin was born.

Her grandmother kicked Smith out of the family because of drug use, and threatened to stab her son.

The judge noted that it took Smith five months to register Joshlin's birth – under the law, it must be completed within 30 days and intermittently lived in a shelter where women were abused.

Later when she recovered, family friend Natasha Andrews stepped in to take care of Joshlin – she and her husband wanted to adopt her.

“We could have provided her with better than mother,” Ms Andrews said at the trial.

Still, Joshlin often visits the Andrews family on weekends and school holidays and will travel with them.

The clips shown in the courtroom where Joshlin laughs are from one of the holidays and form part of Ms. Andrews's victim statement.

She said she shared this photo of Joshlin playing with her daughter because “a lot of people… don’t know Joshlin’s voice,” she said.

It is this and her description of her family’s pain that inspired the greatest emotion in the court.

Joshlin grew up in a corrugated iron structure in the informal settlement of Middlepos with her mother, her mother's partner, her brother and young half-sister.

Social workers' reports describe the shed as “a way of having little privacy due to its highly confined living space.”

Smith did strange jobs to support her family, including part-time homework for Kelly Zeegers, who lives nearby with her family and pays her with groceries instead of cash.

“It was to make sure she and the children had a plate of food,” Ms. Sieges said in her testimony.

Some witnesses did describe Smith as a good mother. Her sister told the court that Joshlin was the spitting image of her mom as a kid.

What happened to Joshlin on the day he disappeared is due to Laurentia Lombard, who became a state witness. At the time, she had smoked with Appollis and Van Rhyn.

She explained that Joshlin started school a few weeks before his disappearance and her brother stayed at home that day because they had no clean uniforms.

When Smith comes in and out of the day, the children stay mostly in the care of Appollis and occasionally go back to smoke.

It is not clear how or when Joshlin disappeared, but the trial was determined to be a period of time in the afternoon – but the concern for most adults meant that the disappearance was reported to police only at 21:00.

The social worker was appointed to compile reports from three people before the verdict, describing Smith as “manipulative” and some say “the lie of baldness.”

“So, it was concluded that Smith was the mastermind of trafficking his daughter,” he said.

Ms. Van Aswigan said she hoped the three would be given “appropriate judgments”, reflecting the growing crisis of child trafficking.

“This is actually showing us more crises than police statistics because of the fact that many cases are not reported.”

She said Joshlin's case was unusual, that was it occupied the entire country.

“I’ve never really seen a case like this before [and] None of us saw such a big search for missing children. I think social media plays a big role [and] We have the political party involved in this case. ”

According to South African news website IOL, 632 children were reportedly missing last year, 8,743 in the past 10 years.

Earlier this month, police spokesman Athlenda Mathe said many children end up reuniting with their families.

Ms. Van Aswigan said this shows that people can never give up hope and the search for Joshlin will continue.

At the sentencing hearing, the Andrews family was full of hope.

A poem written by Ms. Andrews' 14-year-old daughter Tayla was also read in court. It describes her unaware of what happened to Joshlin and the pain she wished her safe.

“We just want to hug you again,” Ms. Andrews said in her statement. “You are our flowers, our babies and our green-eyed children.”

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