POLICE believe boys as young as seven years old are being sold to farmers in neigbouring Lesotho to work as herd boys, the City Press newspaper reported on Sunday. Police said a ten-year-old boy had escaped to South Africa this week from the mountain kingdom where he claimed he had been forced to herd cattle for a farmer after being sold three years ago, apparently by a family member. The child was the third South African boy to escape from similar circumstances in Lesotho this year, police said. The boy told police that a woman helped him escape after seeing the farmer beat him. Police have launched an investigation into what they believe could be a slave trading racket.