Life after prostitution in Tzaneen: Walking a new path

“There is life and hope after prostitution,” these are the words of some of Tzaneen’s rehabilitated prostitutes.

Recently LETABA HERALD reported on the high level of prostitution in the town’s CBD and soon after a project which takes women off the streets contacted the HERALD about their initiative called Vileli.

Vileli, meaning ‘not worried’ is an initiative which falls under Stop Trafficking Of People (STOP) which takes people off of the streets and rehabilitates them through different programs.

Through this project the HERALD met with Musa (not her real name), who was introduced to the street life by an older friend in 1999 when she was 21 and evetually got hooked. After the passing of both her parents, Musa made a living through hairdressing until one of her friends took her from home in Phalaborwa to Middleburg in Mpumalanga, promising her a job at a hair salon as a hairstylist.

Also read: Prostitution rife in Tzaneen’s CBD

Confiding in the HERALD, Musa said: “On the morning that she was supposed to take me to the salon we met a certain man who stopped for us on the road and gave us a lift but I was surprised we were taking too long to reach the salon and we eventually stopped at a place called Middleburg Dam. When the car stopped, my friend and that man started touching each other, I tried getting out of the car but she told me to behave myself and If I dare get out of the car, she would leave me behind there with nowhere to go.

“I cooperated because I knew that I was in the middle of nowhere and I did not have money and did not know anyone there. After the man was done with me, he gave my friend R500 and she took me to the hair salon and told me that I will only get paid R750 a month and we both decided the money was too little for me to survive on.”

Also read: TZANEEN: ‘Female sex worker’ shot by client in critical condition

The duo went back to the place where they were staying and in the evening the older friend told Musa it was time to go out to the streets and do exactly as she did with the man in the morning.

“I had about three men who picked me on my first night, I guess it was because I was a new girl and they knew the other girls who were already in the streets,” Musa says.

One day when her friend went out and left her behind she prayed to God to go back home and she took all of her stuff and hiked back to Phalaborwa.

After returning home she soon realised that life was still a struggle with no one working in her family.

“I asked myself why was my family struggling when there is a lot of money in prostitution,” Musa said.

She decided to come to Tzaneen in 2001 and worked for a while until she went to Rustenburg in the North West with a friend.

They soon returned back from the North West after realising that life there was rough and they had stolen their landlord’s rental money which the other tenants paid him.

However the streets still proved to be rough as she eventually became homeless and slept anywhere she could find a place to just lay her head on.

Little did she know that it was only the beginning of her story when she met Corinne Sandenbergh from Stop trafficking of people (STOP).

Sandenbergh and her team found Musa seated at Skirving Street waiting for her next client and they invited her to join them for prayer and for a cup of tea with sandwiches.

“From that day, my life turned around and I started noticing a change, even though some of the people who started with me quit the programme, but I just told myself that I wont quit I will persist. They taught me how to knit and to crochet and I started getting money from the staff we were making. But I did not quit the streets immediately because the money I was making through the project was too little to sustain me. I am happy to say that I am off the streets and I see that God has prepared good things for me ahead,” she added.

The STOP project takes women off the streets and teaches them different skills and offers them different training courses.

Currently they have eight ladies in Tzaneen who quit prostitution and are part of the Vileli Project.

The Vileli project has enrolled the ladies in different courses where two of the ladies are enrolled on a security training course, four are in hospitality training where they are working at a local hotel and lodge and one lady is doing a hairdressing course.

The ladies are receiving a monthly stipend from the project, but the project is struggling to sustain the initiative due to lack of funding.

Sandenbergh pleads to the community of Tzaneen to donate towards the project to help remove more ladies from the life of prostitution and to give them a better future.

For more information on the project and for donations contact Corinne Sandenbergh on 082 456 2459.