Poverty drives Vaal girls to prostitution
‘I would stop if I found a job,’ says 15-year-old
Image: Ziphozonke Lushaba
An increasing number of girls, some as young as 15, living on farm plots and in informal settlements in the Vaal have turned to sex work along the R42 to Parys in the Free State and the R533 to Potchefstroom in the North West.
One of the girls is 17-year-old Patricia (not her real name). She said she joined the growing number of young sex workers after she lost her job as a waitress when the country went into lockdown in March last year.
She said her life was promising before then, even though she had lost her mother before the lockdown was announced.
“I never thought I would find myself here, but because I’m from a child-headed household it’s just me and my unemployed older brother at home and we live by hustling. Selling my body was my way out,” she said.
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