MBOMBELA – Sex workers in the city feel their rights are being violated.
Mpumalanga News got up close and personal with, Ms Goodness Dibakwane, who said unemployment and poverty were some of the factors that forced her to sell her body so that she could put food on the table for her seven-year-old boy.
“It hurts a lot to be called horrible names such as a whore, slut and mahosha lonukako (stinking prostitute) and just being treated like a sex object as if you are not a human being. It is very painful, but I have to pull myself together, be strong and pretend I am fine for the sake of my son. He needs to go to school and have clothes and I must put food on the table,” she confessed.
Dibakwane said that her miserable life started when she lost her father last year and struggled to provide for her son.
“I don’t want to lie, it is not nice being a sex worker. There’s no joy in sleeping with a stranger. You don’t even know the status of that particular person but you have to render a service.
Sometimes you are not even in the mood but you have to go with the flow because life is tough. Some of our clients are very rough, they hurt you, but you can’t complain because you need the money.
“Sometimes we get cheated. When they pay for services rendered, they just give you R10 instead of R150. At times they don’t give you money at all, instead they assault you and threaten to kill you,” she said.
She concluded by encouraging young girls to focus on their studies and not to be misled by the so-called blessers.
“If I can get a decent job, I will quit prostitution because I don’t love what I do. My young sisters out there must study hard so that they can become better people in life. They must just ignore the blessers as they will expose them to a life of luxury and buy expensive gifts, sleep with them and then when they are done, they will treat them like a doormat. The girls will end up being sex workers because they are used to having money and expensive things,” she concluded.