The Hawks rescued 26 women from a brothel in Klerksdorp early on Friday morning.
Officers had followed up on a tip-off that the premises were being used as a brothel, according to the South African Police Service Facebook page.
The women’s ages ranged from 14 to 37. They were all South African and came from Gauteng, the Northern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and the Eastern Cape.A Nigerian man and 18 South African men at the premises were being interviewed.
Photos of the building revealed squalid conditions, with dirty linen on beds and condom wrappers scattered about on dirty floors. Thin walls or curtains divided beds.