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Thandeka Moyo
“IT’s almost 10pm and I am getting ready for my first client since I have to make R500 tonight,” remarks Paidamoyo Motsi*, 14, probably among the youngest commercial sex workers in Zimbabwe.With charges ranging from R5 to R150, she faces an uphill task. She has to send money to her ailing 81-year-old grandmother; two younger sisters that expect school fees from her back home and pay rent at the brothel she operates from.
Her family believes she is gainfully employed in neighbouring South Africa. The day has been really long for her, from selling eggs to negotiating for cheaper accommodation with her landlady MaNcube who owns one of the busiest brothels in Beitbridge Border Town, but she needs to “pull up her socks” and make most of the night.
Again she needs to be ready for police officers who usually conduct raids demanding $5 fines or sex before they release those caught soliciting for clients. The perennial drought in her rural home Chivi, Masvingo Province forces her to face the risks and the consequences that come with prostitution especially at a tender age like hers.
It has been two years now, and she no longer feels guilty, dirty, or even disgusted by the fact that she sleeps with men of different shapes and sizes to make a living for herself and her family. Paidamoyo is not the only one by the way. She is one of hundreds of teenage prostitutes who despite their age have been flocking to Beitbridge and other border towns to sell their bodies, just to make ends meet.
“I am a prostitute aged 14 and have been treated for STIs on more than 10occasions. I have been in this business for more than two years and I know I am vulnerable to HIV and Aids. I often fail to negotiate for safe sex because some clients take advantage of my age and desperation and demand sex without protection.
“I normally charge R20 for short time or R50 depending on the customers and R150 for overnight and unprotected sex. However sometimes I end up accepting even R5 so I just buy a plate of sadza and call it a day.
“I admit selling my body was not part of the plan when I dropped out of school after my parents’ death to look for a job in this border town. We have an elderly woman called MaNcube, taking care of me and other teenagers who are renting space at her brothel and she brings us clients daily and in turn we each pay R100 everyday as rentals. I am sharing a small room with three other girls and MaNcube also uses us to attract beer customers who frequent the brothel we stay in. I wonder why police let people like her get away with such wickedness.”
Paidamoyo pauses for some minutes as if to clear her mind and continues with tears in her eyes: “Brothels are illegal in Zimbabwe. However, somehow, no law enforcer seems to care about what is happening to us children in this town. On the other hand, if they arrest us, my family will starve to death thus I will rather pay a fine or give sex favours to police whenever I am detained”.
Paidamoyo, who seemed to be struggling with heavy emotion, added:
“I have been arrested countless times. The charge is always loitering for purposes of prostitution. Every time I have to pay $5 or sleep with a police officer to be released. It pains me that these officers who obviously have children my age want to abuse me while theirs are sleeping safely at home”.
The police have not responded to questions submitted to them on this a month ago. Previously, however, they have denied allegations of corruption and challenged aggrieved citizens to report cases to higher authorities.
Paidamoyo had seemed immune to emotion and indestructible when I first approached her.
“Most of my clients are travellers, truck drivers and clearing agents. I have lost hope in law enforcers, social welfare and family structures. The same people we expect to protect us are taking a leading role in dehumanising us,” she said wiping a tear.
“I think I am beyond redemption but my ailing grandmother and school going sisters make me work harder because I am their only hope now. I only went up to Grade Seven and no one is interested in giving me a decent job. I hope my sisters will have a better life.”
She then leads me to her ‘home’ situated a few yards from the famous and ever busy Chocolate City terminus where most of the teens operate from. The brothel is blue in colour and from outside, one could bet it is a safe shelter, full of peace and quiet.
“I stay here with some girls,” she says leading me through a door to her room.
Besides her single bed and a few belongings there is nothing more Paidamoyo can claim to be rightfully hers.
It gives the impression of a dead-end life where one does not aspire to own more than the clothes on one’s back.
The small square room is divided into four, with just enough space for four single beds.
It is impossible to believe the room rakes in about R12 000 every month to the owner.
After weeping openly, Paidamoyo extends her hand for payment.
I silently hand over R250, half her target for the night.
She would not speak before we handed over R250 for loss of business and the other girls also only co-operated after each got a R50 “tip.”
She grasps my hand and says: “Thanks. I needed to tell someone although I know it will not make a difference. I have to get back to work.”
Paidamoyo is a child who is just developing breasts.
She has developed a disconcerting glare through eyes that seem to have seen too much for someone her age.
Nevertheless, there is no mistaking her beauty.
After the depressing tour of the house, she takes me to a nearby bar where I meet three other teenagers with different, yet similar sad stories of how they ended up in prostitution.
“I was never in good relations with my step-father. He eventually forced me to move out of the house. I come from Zvishavane. That is where my mother is, as we speak, together with my four younger siblings. I came here looking for a job. I was hired by one police officer as a maid and he did not pay me for three months. My stepfather later dumped my mother. I have to provide for her and my siblings.
“I ended up coming to the street seeking survival and hooked up with some peers who introduced me to prostitution. I make little through selling vegetables and eggs during the day so I sleep around to supplement the money. I buy groceries and clothes with the money I make and use a Vodacom Line to call my mother who thinks I am in South Africa working as a waitress,” said 16-year-old Beauty Moyo* who lives in a shack in Dulibadzimu Township.
She adds: “The initial plan was to illegally cross over to South Africa but it flopped because I had no travel documents. I could not go back home because the situation is worse. We have no food, money, our small garden cannot produce enough to put food on the table and send children to school.”
Another girl, Nyasha Sigauke*, 18, boldly says, “I am sex worker and for the past three years, I have made a living for myself and parents in Harare. At first, I patiently looked for a job but after several disappointments from a woman I used to sell eggs for I decided to join hundreds of women flocking to this town. I only sleep with high class men and I do not accept anything less than R50 for my services. I wish to go back to school but circumstances do not permit,” she said.
This reporter later hooked up with truck drivers who revealed that teenage prostitution was growing in the border town.
“These girls pretend to be selling eggs during the day or even vegetables but during the night they sell their bodies for money. Well honestly some of them are good at it and it does no harm to pay them as long as they render us quality services,” said one driver who chose to be identified as Hove.
Efforts to contact MaNcube were fruitless.
One vendor, identified as Mai Panashe, however, denied that all teenage prostitutes were a mirror of family disintegration, HIV and Aids related deaths, poverty and abuse.
“I am a social worker who has worked with many disadvantaged children in this town. I am concerned by the high levels of teenage prostitution in Beitbridge considering none of these children are from Beitbridge. I have a niece who I recently sent to my rural home as she contracted HIV and refused to take antiretroviral treatment. She is an orphan and though I offered to take care of her, she threw a pity party on herself and could not be advised on anything.
“What hurts most is that my niece would sleep around without protection and have nothing to show for it at the end of the day.
“I used to work with many non-Government organisations that helped many orphans like her but she chose pleasure over school and a bright future. We can blame parents, police or whoever but children have become so immoral and disrespectful these days, they need divine intervention,” said Mai Panashe.
The above statements are a reflection of the moral decadence haunting Zimbabwe and how the future is slowly becoming bleak for these girls.
In an interview, a nurse working in Beitbridge said many teenagers were flooding Beitbridge as youths view the town as a land of milk and honey.
“I have treated a number of teenagers with syphilis who frequent our clinic. Many are girls who lie about their ages for various reasons. Some open up to me telling of how they are in prostitution as means of survival. It is with shame that some risk their lives just for R5 which can only buy a plate of sadza at the rank,” said the woman who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Since the turn of the century, Zimbabwe’s economy has experienced challenges. Many Zimbabweans do not have adequate food, which is partly attributable to a decrease in local agricultural production as well as recurrent drought.
The unemployment rate is estimated at between 70 and 80 per cent and people are increasingly dependent on remittances from family members living outside the country.
Social services, including health care and education programmes, have been severely degraded. In 2005, the HIV/AIDS infection rate was one of the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Not their real names
Online Reporter