Posted on 11/27/2004 4:37:55 PM PST by UnklGene
Zimbabwean children sell their bodies to put food on the table -
(Filed: 28/11/2004)
As Mugabe tries to keep the eyes of the world solely on cricket, Neil Connery, in Bulawayo, reports on a darker side of life in the country
Linguile finishes applying her lipstick and adjusts her skimpy top. Every night she goes through the same ritual before heading on to the streets of Bulawayo. She is 15 years old, and says that she has no choice but to work as a child prostitute.
"I was driven to desperation to do this. I have to get money for food - there's no other way," she said. "My mother died and my father ran away. I have two younger sisters to look after. There's nobody else now. I do this so I can put food on the table and pay the rent. If I didn't do this, I don't know where we'd be."
Linguile starts work at about 7pm, hanging around clubs and hotels in the city centre looking for clients. "I work for 12 hours, seven days a week," she said.
"If I'm lucky I might make 90,000 Zimbabwean dollars [£6] a night, but it's getting harder because more and more young girls are doing the same. They have to, just to survive these days."
Although Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, is determined that reporters with England's touring cricketers - who are due to play two matches in Bulawayo this week - should write only about sport, Linguile has a message for the players. "I think they should come and see what is really happening here," she said. "I'd like to tell them about girls like me because we really have to do this."
Food shortages in Bulawayo have claimed the lives of more than 160 people in the past year, according to Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube, the city's mayor and a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Although the government announced a "record harvest" in May and ordered the World Food Programme to stop distributing aid, a Zimbabwe parliamentary committee gave warning this month that the country would run out of food before April.
Mr Mugabe's seizures of white-owned farms have led to the collapse of a once-thriving agricultural economy. Zimbabwe used to be able to export food to drought-stricken neighbours in southern Africa. Now, the plight of its people is worsened by the spread of Aids - at least one in three of Zimbabwe's population is HIV positive. Despite the terrible risks, Linguile and hundreds of other girls who sell their bodies are prepared to have unprotected sex to make more money.
"I know it's dangerous but I've done it twice without a condom because I was so desperate," she said. "The others do it as well and it's what many of the men ask for. If I said no they'd only go and give their money to someone else."
Often, however, it is not money that customers hand over in exchange for sex. Zimbabwe's economy is falling apart and hard cash is scarce. Inflation is running at over 200 per cent. The child prostitutes have devised a new system of payment to beat the cash shortage.
"Sometimes I just get them to give me groceries. That way, it means me and my sisters have something to eat."
Linguile is both scared and angry about her plight. "I've dropped out of school now and my education is finished. I'm angry I have to do this. If I was at school, in one year I'd get my O levels, and who knows, maybe A levels after that. If I'd stayed, maybe I'd get a decent job. But that's all gone now.
"I'm scared of doing this. Some of the men can be very rough. But we'd starve if I didn't do it."
Moses Ndlovu, an opposition MP, said that Linguile's story showed how desperate life in Zimbabwe had become. "The evidence is out there on the streets when you see them scouting for clients. These are 12-, 13-year-olds wearing skimpy clothes exposing themselves so that clients are more attracted to them.
"The shocking part is that they are prepared to put their lives in danger by offering unprotected sex. This tells you how cheap life in Zimbabwe has become."
Neil Connery is the ITV News Africa Correspondent.
very interesting... I hope the children don't succumb to Mugabe-cide. Also, note to children. Watch out for a nice man holding out food with the initials UN.
Anyone who still believes in cultural equivalence is a fool.
I wish the African Union could do something about Robert Mugabe, but their "peacekeepers" in the Sudan are looting, hiring prostitutes and dying of AIDS.
I don't think there's really anything to match communism for the amount of pain and suffering,etc. they've caused on this earth. Not even the religion of pieces is the same.
yeah, tell the sports reporters so we can flood them with our money so they can waste it.
I well remember when the liberal elitests in this country thought this was the best possible thing for Zimbabwe.
They still do.
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Actually they think communist dictatorship is good for everyone, they have it all figured it out on paper. They spout the platitudes, maybe even travel to the same countries (knowing full well they have a nice warm house with Walmarts on every block back home in America).
Mr Mugabe's seizures of white-owned farms have led to the collapse of a once-thriving agricultural economy.At the risk of sounding like a "liberal elitist" some of us noted the similarities between Mugabe and Hitler long before he seized white owned properties. Like Hitler, Mugabe started out as a "family values" type. I know this will start a "sh*tstorm" in here, but many in the U.S. overlooked Mugabe's repression (and violence) against gays followed by repression against other marginal groups (religious minorities) and then against trade unionists. He then moved to eliminate any dissident groups, even relatively harmless ones like Methodist Bishops (remember the trials against the Bishop on a shady pedophilia charge?). Then eliminated an independent judiciary. And like Hitler, Mugabe blamed economic problems on a wealthy ethnic minority. It's only because that minority was white and European that people started to notice. If you want a "free republic" -- in Zimbabwe or anywhere else -- one needs to defend the rights of people we don't particularly like to enjoy the same freedoms we expect for ourselves.
good point
We were talking about cultural equivalence in English class. Of course, I was the only one to believe that America is the best country in the world. Just so you can get some perspective, I am one of the only two white boys in the class. More than half of the 18 kids in my class are foreigners who either are or want to be citizens - but apparently America isnt better than any other country...
Casn't find a thing to argue with you about in your reply #11.
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