One heartbreaking question is 'still being asked' after mum sold 6-year-old daughter to 'healer' for £800

The trial over the disappearance of six-year-old girl Joshlin Smith came to a conclusion yesterday in South Africa as the girl's mother Racquel 'Kelly' Smith was sentenced to life in prison for human trafficking after she was judged to have sold her daughter.

Also sentenced to life imprisonment were Jacquen Appollis, Smith's boyfriend, and their friend Steveno van Rhyn, while in addition to their life sentences all three were also given 10 year sentence for kidnapping.

The six-year-old girl is thought to have disappeared sometime during the afternoon of 19 February 2024, the day she had been reported missing from her home in Saldanha Bay.

Joshlin's disappearance prompted a significant search effort with locals saying they'd 'never experienced such unity in this community'.

"Everyone, no matter what race or culture - they were all there helping with the search. I saw the unity in our people," community activist Carmelite Ross said.

Jacquen Appollis, Steveno Van Rhyn and Kelly Smith were sentenced to life in prison, but nobody knows where Joshlin Smith is (Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images)

However, two weeks after Joshlin went missing her mother was arrested by police during the course of their investigation.

During the trial a woman named Lourentia Lombaard spoke as a witness and alleged that Joshlin had been sold by her mother to a 'healer' (also known as a sangoma) for a fee of 20,000 rand (around £800), claiming Smith told her she'd done 'something silly'.

Lombaard claimed to the court that the person that bought the six-year-old child 'wanted her for her eyes and skin', and another witness testified that he had once heard Kelly Smith talk about selling her children for 20,000 rand.

In his verdict Judge Nathan Erasmus made no conclusions over who the girl had been sold to or what had happened to her, but said she had been sold, telling the convicted trio: "There is nothing that I can find that is redeeming and deserving of a lesser sentence than the harshest I can impose."

Sentencing was carried out in a sports centre so that members of the local community could attend and while the trial is over there is still one huge question that remains unanswered, and that's where Joshlin Smith actually is.

Joshlin's father Jose Emke (left) and grandmother Amanda Smith Daniels (right) attended sentencing (Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images)

Nobody has been found and the search is ongoing, with Western Cape Police Commissioner Lieutenant Thembisile Patekile saying after the sentencing that 'the search for Joshlin remains active'.

Speaking to the BBC, criminologist Bianca van Aswegen said that while the conviction was a relief to the community 'the matter of fact is that nobody knows where Joshlin is and I think that's the big question that South Africa is still asking'.

She compared the case of Joshlin Smith to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann as she explained the impact the missing child had on South Africa.

Joshlin's disappearance became a high-profile case in the country and now the trial has determined what happened people are only left to wonder where the girl is.