A South African mother has been jailed for life, along with her two accomplices, after she sold her daughter to a traditional “healer” so her light eyes and skin could be cut out and used for medicine.

Racquel ‘Kelly’ Smith sold six-year-old Joshlin for 20,000 rand (£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 for the child.

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?”

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 2024.

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.”

The sentencing follows an eight-week trial that captivated South Africa, with witnesses and prosecutors making a number of shocking allegations.

Judge Nathan Erasmus said he “drew no distinction” between the trio in handing down the sentences.

“On the human trafficking charge, you are sentenced to life imprisonment. On the kidnapping charge, you are sentenced to 10 years imprisonment,” he said to loud applause in the courtroom.

Smith, 35, and her accomplices showed no emotion as their sentences were read out in the community centre in Saldanha where the trial was held to allow residents to attend proceedings.

Police said the search for the little girl would continue, even beyond South Africa’s borders.

“We will not rest until we find [out] what happened to Joshlin. We are continuing day and night looking for her,” Western Cape police commissioner Thembisile Patekile told local media.