Trapped in sex trade
Girls as young as 10 are selling themselves to truckers along the Zambia/Botswana border, who are being urged to at least use condoms.
Impoverished village girls as young as 10 are trapped in the flourishing sex trade along the Zambia/Botswana border.
Sex workers from Namibia, South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe are plying their trade in the area where the Kazangula Bridge is being constructed.
The young sex workers are using the opportunity presented by massive delays being experienced at the border post, where snaking lines of trucks, up to 6km long, are parked for up to 12 days at a time.
Local headman Morgan Makanga said his biggest concern is that young girls are being introduced to the sex trade by older women.
“Some parents are reporting this to my office and I can personally see for myself. When it is evening I can see some of these young girls coming from the villages making their way to the trucks; some are as young as 12, sometimes 10,” he said.
Asked what he has done as traditional leader to address the issue, he said he has called meetings with truck drivers.
“I have told them that if you need a female, at least use a condom,” he said. He added that girls come from very far to sell themselves at the border post that that crosses into the Zambezi Region.
“They are flocking here. There is nothing we can do, they are literally hunting and when I talk to them they tell me they come for business,” he said.
Makanga hopes that once the much-anticipated Kazangula Bridge between Botswana and Zambia is complete, the sex trade will dissipate.
“Obviously it will not be killed, but the situation will improve because truckers do not have to wait for a ferry once their paperwork is done,” he said.
A trucker from the Zambian Copperbelt Province, Alfred Chimpende, said sex workers are not easily spotted, because they “do not come with make-up but are dressed like normal people” and loiter around the long line of trucks.
“If you come here at around 19:00 you will find some sitting and walking around like ants.”
Chimpende had already been delayed for over three days when Namibian Sun met up with him at Kazangula Bridge.
According Steve Mhungu, another trucker, sex workers announced themselves with a distinctive knock on their truck doors.
“They come and knock on the door and we know that knock is not a knock for help but for something else,” he said.
The Kazangula Bridge that costs US$161 million is co-funded by the Botswana and Zambian governments, but promises very good spinoffs for other Southern African countries, including Namibia.
*Namibian Sun journalist Jemima Beukes was in Kasane, Botswana at the invitation of the Sothern African Development Community, in partnership with Namibia's information ministry. She joined journalists from Namibia, Botswana and Zambia on a tour of the Kazangula Bridge construction area between Botswana and Zambia.
JEMIMA BEUKES
Sex workers from Namibia, South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe are plying their trade in the area where the Kazangula Bridge is being constructed.
The young sex workers are using the opportunity presented by massive delays being experienced at the border post, where snaking lines of trucks, up to 6km long, are parked for up to 12 days at a time.
Local headman Morgan Makanga said his biggest concern is that young girls are being introduced to the sex trade by older women.
“Some parents are reporting this to my office and I can personally see for myself. When it is evening I can see some of these young girls coming from the villages making their way to the trucks; some are as young as 12, sometimes 10,” he said.
Asked what he has done as traditional leader to address the issue, he said he has called meetings with truck drivers.
“I have told them that if you need a female, at least use a condom,” he said. He added that girls come from very far to sell themselves at the border post that that crosses into the Zambezi Region.
“They are flocking here. There is nothing we can do, they are literally hunting and when I talk to them they tell me they come for business,” he said.
Makanga hopes that once the much-anticipated Kazangula Bridge between Botswana and Zambia is complete, the sex trade will dissipate.
“Obviously it will not be killed, but the situation will improve because truckers do not have to wait for a ferry once their paperwork is done,” he said.
A trucker from the Zambian Copperbelt Province, Alfred Chimpende, said sex workers are not easily spotted, because they “do not come with make-up but are dressed like normal people” and loiter around the long line of trucks.
“If you come here at around 19:00 you will find some sitting and walking around like ants.”
Chimpende had already been delayed for over three days when Namibian Sun met up with him at Kazangula Bridge.
According Steve Mhungu, another trucker, sex workers announced themselves with a distinctive knock on their truck doors.
“They come and knock on the door and we know that knock is not a knock for help but for something else,” he said.
The Kazangula Bridge that costs US$161 million is co-funded by the Botswana and Zambian governments, but promises very good spinoffs for other Southern African countries, including Namibia.
*Namibian Sun journalist Jemima Beukes was in Kasane, Botswana at the invitation of the Sothern African Development Community, in partnership with Namibia's information ministry. She joined journalists from Namibia, Botswana and Zambia on a tour of the Kazangula Bridge construction area between Botswana and Zambia.
JEMIMA BEUKES
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