Girl, 8, missing after mum sold her to 'healer' for her ‘light eyes and skin’ for £800

A mother has been jailed for life after she sold her daughter to a rogue healer.

Racquel ‘Kelly’ Smith sold six-year-old Joshlin for £800 in February because the healer wanted her fair complexion and turquoise eyes.

The case shocked South Africa even further when it emerged that she would have accepted £200.

Smith,35,has now been sentenced for kidnapping and trafficking along with boyfriend Jacquen Appollis and friend,Steveno van Rhyn.

Judge Nathan Erasmus told them: ‘There is nothing that I can find that is redeeming and deserving of a lesser sentence than the harshest I can impose’

Joshlin’s grandmother,Amanda Smith-Daniels,is now begging her daughter to reveal where Joshlin is.

She told Newzroom Afrika: ‘I don’t feel that any sentence they get will bring my grandchild back.’

Speaking directly to Smith,she added: ‘How do you sleep [and] live with yourself?’

Joshlin (left),6,has been missing since she is thought to have ended up in the hands of a traditional healer

Joshlin’s family remain in limbo over her whereabouts despite the trial (Picture: Executive Mayor Andre Truter)

Joshlin’s mum Racquel ‘Kelly’ Smith was sentenced to life in prison for human trafficking and 10 years imprisonment for the kidnapping charge (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)

Her teacher also said that Joshlin’s schoolfriends still ask where she is.

A court heard that Joshlin vanished from outside her home in Saldanha Bay,near Cape Town,in February.

She had been living with family friends after her mother – with a drug dependency since her teens – became abusive while high.

They wanted to adopt her to give her a better life,but the family blocked these bids.

Neighbour Lorential Lombaard said Smith confessed to them that she had sold Joshlin to a sangoma – traditional healer known as soul doctors.

She later saw Smith packing a bag of clothes for Joshlin before getting into a car with the woman she believes to be the healer.

The young girl’s teacher also claimed that Smith told her that Joshlin was already ‘on a ship inside a container,and they were on the way to western Africa.’

Grandmother Amanda Smith-Daniels wore a t-shirt with Joshlin’s picture to her daughter’s sentencing as she was jailed over human trafficking and kidnapping charges (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)