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Step dad drove me to prostitution

24/08/2013 03:28:00 BY SISHO MAGAGULA

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An entrance to one of the popular brothels around Matsapha where sex workers operate freely. (Pic Sisho Magagula)

EZULWINI – A young woman has told of how she ended up being a sex worker after being abused by her stepfather.

Phumlile* (23) said her biological father died in 2007, she was only 17 and her mother moved on with another man soon thereafter at her parental homestead in Mankayane.
Hardly a year after her stepfather moved in with them, he started abusing her, physically, emotionally and sexually.

In 2010, she decided enough was enough and she ran away from home. She headed for Ezulwini in search of a better life. Phumlile now lives in a rented one room flat at Mvubu, Ezulwini where she earns a living through commercial sex work.

“After my father’s death, my mother quickly asked her lover to move in with us. This was hardly six months after my father’s death. This was the beginning of my problems. My mother was a hawker who used to buy clothing items from Durban and resell them in the country.

“She would spend several days away from home, giving plenty of time for my stepfather to take advantage of me. He started being hostile towards me each time my mother left. He would order me to do ridiculous household chores and beat me up if I failed to do some of them.
“I remember one day he sent me to herd cattle and I refused because I had never done it before. My mum was in Durban and he beat me up for failing to take his instructions,” said Phumlile.

She tolerated all the other forms of abuse at the hands of her stepfather until he started sexually abusing her.
“One day he sent me to the shops to buy white bread and I returned with brown bread because there was no white bread. He grabbed an old pipe and started assaulting me, accusing me of taking him for granted and not respecting him. He beat me until I was unconscious. When I regained consciousness, I was naked in his bedroom,” she said,
Phumlile said that was when she realised that her stepfather had sexually abused her and when she asked him what had happened, he ordered her to dress up and not dare tell her mother or anyone what had happened.

“What pained me the most throughout my miserable years of abuse was that each time I told my mother about it, she did not believe me. Instead, she would take my stepfather’s side and accuse me of being mischievous,” she said.
In May 2010, she decided to free herself from the abuse and ran away from home. She was in Form II at the time. “I went to stay at a friend’s house in Ezulwini. The friend was older than me and she had also run away from home in 2009. My friend had told me that life was much better in Ezulwini,” she stated.

Little did she know that her life was just about to take a turn for the worst in Ezulwini, the place commonly known as the ‘valley of heaven’.
After spending nearly a month at the friend’s rented flat, she was told to also make contributions towards food in the house – one way or the other. Being the rural girl she was, she wondered how she had to put food on the table when she was unemployed.

That was when she was taught how to make easy and quick money and was introduced to prostitution by the ‘bigger sisters’ who were roommates in the same house she occupied with her friend.

She was first taken to one of the hotels in Ezulwini where she was ‘schooled’ on how to entice clients. From there, she has never looked back.
A few months later, she moved to her own one-room flat which she occupies even today at Mvubu. Mvubu is situated in Ezulwini, just next to the Mbabane – Manzini highway before the satellite off-ramp.

... usual clients are married men

EZULWINI – Self-confessed commercial sex worker Phumlile has revealed that most of her clients are married men.

Phumlile is a popular sex trader at Mvubu as she is well known. During the investigation by the Swazi News, it was not very difficult to locate her as a shopkeeper at a nearby tuck-shop readily gave directions to her place.

The shopkeeper actually identified several other sex workers within the area. Our investigators posed as potential clients and she immediately asked where they were from.

They said they were from Matsapha and were looking for the services of commercial sex workers. “Ngingulomunye wabo. You look young, why are you looking for prostitutes? Don’t you have a girlfriend? Most of my clients are married men,” she said before explaining her charges.
She charges E150 per session and E350 for the whole night.

When asked why she was so expensive when each session is charged at E70 in Matsapha, she said: “I am different from those girls. You sleep in my house and I provide everything for you. Afterwards, you bath using my water, you will probably also watch TV and I provide extras such as massage. That’s why I charge high rates,” she said.

Phumlile said she decided to offer her services in her rented flat because a majority of her clients were married men. “Most of the people I ‘service’ were married men. Married men cannot take you anywhere because they have their wives at home. Some cannot even take you to hotels because they do not want to be seen by the people who know them as being married. So it is better to do everything here,” she said.