'I can't sleep on the streets or lose my children': sex workers live in fear after gruesome murders

Sex workers operating in downtown Johannesburg on the corners of Anderson and End Streets have spoken candidly about the hardships they face there.

“We have never been safe here. Some of the clients threaten us with guns or knives,” the women told TimesLIVE. 

They ply their trade less than 2km from where the bodies of six women, believed to be sex workers, were discovered on Sunday.

A 47-year-old sex worker and mother of three, who rents a flat there with a friend, charges clients R50 and pays R10 to use a building close to where she works. 

On a busy day, she earns about R500 but since Monday business has not been going well.

She said sex workers were the victims of an assortment of crimes. 

“A client can get inside [the room] with you and take out a gun or knife. We are often raped here. When you are raped, there is nothing you can do. You just keep quiet and leave. The following day you go to a clinic and get the pills to clean yourself,” she said.

The Zimbabwean woman said she had been a regular visitor to SA before deciding to stay in the country. As a child, she would visit her father, who worked in Johannesburg, during the school holidays. She later relocated to SA with her husband.

The couple stayed in Braamfontein while their children remained in Zimbabwe, but in 2007 they separated.

“I was married. The man just left the house with his cellphone and a laptop and never returned. When I went to his workplace, he told me, 'I left the house without anything, what do you want here?'” she said.

He gave her two months' rent and stopped communicating with her. She later met someone else, fell pregnant but that relationship ended too.

After her third pregnancy, she struggled to make ends meet and ended up on the streets as a sex worker for more than 10 years, supporting her three children in Zimbabwe.

“I realised it is better to be here on the streets, since trying to have a family wasn’t working for me,” she said. 

Explaining her daily routine, she said before leaving home she prayed she would generate enough money for the day. “It also depends on your age. I am already old now. It is no longer easy to get business like before.”

On some days, she struggles to meet her R500 target. Load-shedding sometimes cuts work evenings short as the area becomes too dark for safety.

“I used to come here at 4am and leave at 8pm with that R300 or R400 but now you hardly make R200 here. Since I arrived here at 8am, I only have R80 — at this time at 1pm,” she said. 

“And there will be those [clients] who complain that they don’t have money and then they pay R40 and you have to [pay] R10 to use the space at the building and you are left with R30.”

Her children are studying at home and she hopes one day they will get jobs to help her. 

“We have been fighting to be in the streets — they initially [police] didn’t allow us to be here — we used to stand by the corners. It has been a struggle. It’s hard ... it is painful,” she said.

She added that life on the streets was risky but necessary. “I am nothing. I am just hoping that my children finish school and help me. I can even sleep without eating anything. I do all this just to try to send the money to my kids back home but this week it has been terrible. There is no business.”

Another sex worker, a 41-year-old mother of two, walks about 3km in the mornings and late evenings to End Street from Hillbrow.

This has been her daily routine to make ends meet. She turned to sex work after losing her job during the Covid-19 lockdown. 

“I stay with my children. I am a single mother and I am here to make an income for my children so that they can eat, go to school and I would be able to pay the school fees and the rent,” she said.

When she lost her job she sought help from a friend who was a sex worker. When her friend could no longer afford to help, the mother of two was on the verge of being evicted from her flat due to rental arrears.

“She [the friend] said, 'I can’t be supporting you and your children, you must come and work with us or find a plan to look after your children.'

“That’s when I decided that I should come here rather than sleeping on the streets or losing my children. It is better to come here and do what my friend does and if she can do it as a woman then what will stop me?” she asked.

The children don’t know what she does for a living but do know she works, brings home food, pays their rent and school fees.

She agreed her occupation was risky but she had to risk her life for her children’s sake. “We have children to look after. At the end of the month, they need rent. I must come here whether I like it or not,” she said

The single mother pays rent of R2,700 and tries to make money before it gets dark so she can be home with her children. She sometimes leaves the area at 9pm and walks home.

“Our lives are not safe at all but we have to take the risk. If I get something early I leave but it happens that a day goes by without getting anything. It is very difficult when you go back home without any money.”

The two sex workers said they did not believe the young man arrested for the alleged premeditated murder of six women was capable of committing such a crime. 

They had never come across him before. 

The man made a brief appearance in the Johannesburg magistrate's court on Tuesday.

National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Phindi Mjonondwane said the accused was charged with one count of murder though six bodies were discovered.

“At this stage, we only have evidence that links him to one murder,” she told media outside the court.

His identity may not be revealed before an identity parade is held.

Provincial police spokesperson Brig Brenda Muridili said on Wednesday the victims were yet to be identified.

“None of the victims have been positively identified by next of kin,” she said.

TimesLIVE

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