Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - May 14, 2006
Subashni Naidoo

The phenomenon has been described by community leaders as a social scourge that is spiralling out of control, particularly in Chatsworth.

The children operate in red-light districts, charging clients, mostly older men, between R5 and R30 for sex. They use the proceeds to buy fashionable clothes, jewellery, cellphones and MP3 players.

A co-ordinator of the Durban Children's Rights Centre, Noreen Ramsden, said there were fears many of the clients could be HIV-positive, which, in turn, could lead to an Aids explosion in Indian townships.

"These teenagers are pushed into a consumerist society which they can't afford," said Ramsden.

"Some sugar daddies pay the children's school fees in return for sexual favours."

Chatsworth Anti-Drug Forum founder Sam Pillay said some girls fell into prostitution to support a drug addiction.

"Some girls become so desperate that they eventually choose to live with druglords in central Durban, offering sexual favours in return for drugs," said Pillay.

Childline, a child counselling and support NGO, said that in most of its investigations, children cited poverty and material needs as reasons for trading themselves.

The organisation said that in one case, a Durban mother encouraged her child to become the sexual partner of a neighbour to provide food for the family.

Childline's national co-ordinator, Joan van Niekerk, gave as an example a 13-year-old who refused to testify against her pimp, an older woman, because she supplied her with designer clothing and makeup.

Van Niekerk said most of the girls they tried to help absconded from the organisation's place of safety and returned to the streets because they could not cope with what they perceived to be the material deprivation.

"While doing a radio programme recently, I received a call from a 15-year-old girl working at a massage parlour. The girl told me not to try to stop her from what she was doing, as the rewards she got were so great that she did not want to be taken out of that environment," said Van Niekerk.

Les Govender, a member of the provincial legislature who serves on the education and social welfare portfolio committees, said the problem was complicated, as the prostitution rings were run by syndicates that involved police officers and taxi drivers, who sourced clients for the girls.

"I'm aware of pupils who lead their parents to believe that they are at school, but have a change of clothing in their schoolbags. These children then go off on the streets," said Govender.

Chatsworth police spokesman Captain Edmund Singh said child prostitution was on the increase, adding that Chatsworth was a lucrative market.

"Men driving luxury vehicles are the people utitilising this service, which occurs in the Chatsworth CBD," said Singh.

"We have charged several women over the past year, but the cases are thrown out of court as a result of insufficient evidence."

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