The Prostitutes of Mokopane

By Rebone Makgato

They prefer dark alleys and shady hotels.

They are regarded as filthy and soulless.

The have been called all sorts of names one can think of.

They have been blamed for moral breakdown, promiscuity and the spread of HIV/Aids... among other social problems.

Some call them the women of the night. Some call them prostitutes...

But they simply prefer to be called sex workers.

 

Who are these women?

 

This book, based on a study of sex workers in a town of Mokopane, South Africa, one of the places where prostitution has grown at an astonishing rate, attempts to find out the reasons why women fall into prostitution.

The book looks at circumstances surrounding prostitution, who practices it, the reasons why some women cannot resist prostitution while others don't see it as a option, benefits and potential benefits that can be derived from sex work, a view of prostitution as legalised employment within the South African labour relations context, and the social impact prostitution has in the town of Mokopane.

 

To find out if prostitution is a scourge or a Godsend, read the harrowing stories of these women from South Africa and decide for yourself. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rebone Makgato
• Release date: Jan 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781458191274

Rebone Makgato

I am a novelist, poet, short story writer and an investigative journalist. I have written a number of books and winning short stories. My books are available in paperback on www.amazon.com. For more information visit my website: www.rebone.yolasite.com. I love poetry and I have a blog called Decolonising Poetry - where you can encounter a kind of poetry never before written. Visit Decolonising Poetry here: http://1rebone.wordpress.com/I love news. I am the founder and editor of a daily online newspaper I call What To Know http://paper.li/f-1387818040. Vist the paper and subscribe for free.In addition to my writing career, I am a trained chemist.I run a chemicals business called Rebochem. Rebochem supplies laboratory chemicals, laboratory equipment, laboratory apparatus and glassware, and lab science kit packages to both junior and high schools, as well as universities, research/medical laboratories and manufacturing industry.

Book preview

THE PROSTITUTES

OF

MOKOPANE

––––––––

Rebone Makgato

__________

Foreword

As the author of this work, I made a pledge to respect and protect the sources of the entries in my diary Their harrowing life stories made it possible for this book to be brought together.

I understand that failure to respect and protect the people portrayed in these narrations would compromise their integrity. It would further erode their self-esteem as human beings.

I feel that in all difficult circumstances that these workers face each day of their lives, be they biological, psychological, social, economical, environmental or otherwise, they are, in every shape and form as human as I am. I cry against their degradation in all forms.

Further, I understand that reproducing their stories in a way that would be circumstantially and constitutionally defaming, such as in other media like film, play or any other method of narration, would be subject to my authorisation for fair use and portrayal.

While prostitution is viewed as a scourge, it is also in some quarters accepted, if not tolerated, as a god-sent solution to many problems. In this view, no matter how detestable conservatives may deem it to be, the identities of these workers need to be protected.

Therefore the real names of these characters, and in some instances, their last names, have been changed.

Finally, it depends on the lens through which you peer at prostitution. The decision rests with the reader. As to whether prostitution is a scourge or a life-saver, it is for the reader to decide. The views contained in this book are original.

––––––––

Rebone

MOKOPANE

August 2005

––––––––

____________

Introduction

––––––––

Dear Reader. I was born in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa. I work at a factory in Mokopane, in the province of Limpopo. Some people may remember the small town of Mokopane by its former name of Potgietersrus. I work as a Laboratory Chemist in the quality control department. Our factory is situated in the industrial area, approximately two kilometres north of town, past Protea Park hotel, which is just off the highway. There are a number of companies operating in that space.

Our factory operates continually – 24/7 as the youth say. I work a five-day week of eight hour shifts. My shifts are arranged as follows: first week I report for duty at 3pm and work until 11pm. The second week starts at 11pm to 7am while the third week is morning shift – 7am to 3pm. The fourth week is an off-week.

Naturally, after the end of my afternoon shift at 11pm, the industrial area is always quiet. There is virtually no traffic when I drive home, or when I drive to work to begin night duty. Someone (I forget who it was) had once said that Mokopane is a town in perpetual slumber. Except, of course, for the odd truck on the way to deliver raw materials to a factory, or patrolling police vans. Around this time when I leave home, my two kids – a six and half year old boy and a four and half year old girl, would be sound asleep. I plant our mandatory, ritualistic good-bye-night-see-you-‘morrow kids soft kisses on their tender cheeks. The following morning I have to be home early in order to transport them to pre-primary school.

I’ve been working at this company for fourteen years now – my first ever job since I graduated from college. Unlike some of my colleagues, the idea of hopping around changing jobs had never appealed to me. The same, however, cannot be said about my residential habits. I've hopped around and changed residences a number of times. Still, over these number of years I've found myself invariably using the same roads to and from work.

Thence that means I always pass the same houses, the same shops, those same factories, and the same security guards. Given so much exposure to the same roads as a regular user, I happen to notice every minor change. Some people would say it is quite boring using the same roads everyday. I’d counter that it is not boring. Over time one happens to be engrossed in the little ritual of using the same streets and it eventually mutates into something else, like a habit that cannot be shaken off. So habitually, even if you meant to take a different street this time around, you’d find yourself in the usual street that you meant to avoid.

Moreover, as a veteran of the same streets, I happen to notice little things that ordinary users often take for granted. This led me to develop interest in people that I see everyday on my commute to and from work. As an inquisitive, observant person, I become interested in these things. Different people with varied behaviours that I see daily interest me and never bore me. The habit is so engrained that images that I see would recur – and play themselves over and over again. Gradually, it becomes inevitable that the brain would file mental notes and silently analyse situations that my eyes encounter on these roads.

You may wonder why I tell you all of this. You may also be right to challenge me that some of the things I see on these roads are of no substance to the reader, and are therefore easily forgettable. Like little things that one would not bother perusing. Such as noticing, for instance, that this steel structure-making factory had its gate repainted after eight years. Not quite useful.

However, during those times that I hugged the same streets to and from work, my life changed dramatically. Into my focus slipped in an interest and a burning desire to know more about the only intriguing characteristic feature of the night scene. The objects of my interest – the features that indeed print indelible images in many people’s minds – were, like scavenging owls on the prowl, coming out in full force when darkness fell, and disappeared rapidly before the first rooster crowed in the early hours of each morning. These were the women who prowl the streets during the night. These were women of extraordinary and strange, if not difficult choices. They prefer to refer to themselves as workers working the streets or rounding the streets. These are the women who are hated by every section of society. These are the women whom most of us regard as filthy, with questionable morals. These are the women who are constantly sworn at and considered to possess less fibre of human conscience. Yes, these are the women who husbands and wives would drive past without feeling a need to pause for a moment and question the circumstances that may have contributed to bringing them out there. Majority of us do not feel duty-bound to recognise that something got to be done about this situation. We consider ourselves perfect human beings without blemishes, in contrast to the women whose very intent is to go against the moral standards that we've set for ourselves.

The women I encounter in the streets at night are the women to whom many in our communities attribute a variety of societal and family maladies. They are accused of a plethora of wrongs, from spreading sexually transmitted diseases to dysfunctional family structures. Need scapegoat for societal disintegration, diseases, and exacerbated moral degeneration? Blame the ladies of the night. Further, they are perceived as ruining teenage life and  increasing teenage promiscuity in the population. They are seen as the main cause of overall gender-based disrespect and abuse of women in general. These are the women who sexist people like to blame for the creation and the sustenance of female-related stereotypes prevalent in many abusive and irresponsible men.

As it could be expected, the clergy wouldn’t be caught with their pants down admonishing this occupation. The church, which is considered a yardstick of best human behaviour, is mostly silent on the general tolerance of such sex workers in society. It fails to condemn this occupation in the most strongest terms other than cursing them as examples of rotten apples in society. If and when they do, it is with hushed, selective tones. After all, one too many religious leaders had been caught red-handed, indulging in the services of the very same women they consider rotten apples of society. How can the clergy spoil their fun and pursue such unpopular debates? Their strong equivocal involvement lacks the spiritual basis on which they could fall back on and claim: See, it is written that it shall not be so.

After all, their so-called moral book teaches them that Samson went to Gaza. What did he do there? He found a prostitute. And spent the night with her. Samson, a man of god. What did he do with the prostitute for the whole night? Quote her scriptures? Ask her to repent? Advise her that god would punish her in the last judgment if she didn’t change her ways? Notice that Samson was not even admonished for his erring ways. Shhhh.... Not a word.

The character was just one of the supporters of what they'd have you believe is the most ancient profession since the beginning of time.

Anyway, back to irresponsible men. Irresponsible men are men who would not think twice about beating up and starving their girlfriends or wives. Their other halves are the disadvantaged ones. In many cases they are the most vulnerable ones without job prospects, and without hope for a better life. Irresponsible men abuse their partners and then boast of their exploits to their friends when they're out with the boys at their favourite bars. Irresponsible men abuse not only their wives and girlfriends. They abuse also little innocent girls, ravaging them, raping them and breaking their fragile souls. They pounce on unsuspecting little girls like hawks they are.

Irresponsible men encourage within their bodies and minds constant feelings of excitement and extreme arousal at the prospect – or even the slightest possibility – of feeling a little girl’s tender, young throat under their powerful hands. A throat that had not witnessed a handful of summers. They get immense excitement at slitting the innocent girl’s tender throat with a steak knife. They commit crimes without flinching or batting an eyelid, and use the same knife to cut out a chunk of beef at the barbecue. The pleasurable reward is too great, even comparable to a serial killer who laughs heartily at their victim when warm, innocent blood flows out of the severed veins and splatter on his arms and shirt. It is the ultimate, incomparable thrill. The sick satisfaction. The kick; the necromantic blood-sex-satisfaction – call it what you like – of seeing a helpless, young victim, blood spurting from the slit throat, writhing, twitching her last kick, dying in agony. And eventually, more than likely, he’d seek another victim, repeat the orgy of pursuing sick excitement, and replay the DVD images of the abuse that he had saved in his sick mind.

Innocent little girls. No need to wonder, and, with multi-punctuated agony, ask why?

Just because she was a little girl. Just because she was going to grow up into a mature, full-fledged woman. A sister, a mother. Your sister, your mother. My sister... my mother. Just because he believes that all women are cheap. Because he foolishly ignores the intrinsic worth that the life of a woman holds, the irresponsible man is devoid of female reverence. The skewed upbringing, masochistic-based indoctrination, peer initiation, muscle power and financial position all put him in a powerful position that determines how he treats women in his life – let alone those he meets in the fringes of the community.

Abusive men view all women as cheap, and as such are not perturbed by their abusive behaviour. Why worry? Why feel remorse? A woman can be changed just as often as an abusive man changes his underwear in a month. They do not feel obligated to have a feeling of natural, deep-set respect. Hell, his mother was battered as well and kicked around by his father when he returned from work. He witnessed the savage attack: the poor woman cowering below the safety of the kitchen table, looking wide-eyed, with nowhere to find refuge. And battering like that, when it finds a silenced mouth, escalates. When it doesn’t find a mind crying for justice and respect, it gets worst by the day. It repeats itself and becomes a cycle, eating away at the fibre of the very woman who was supposed to be held in high regard.

Abusive men know – or perhaps they’ve been taught – that the soul of a woman in the streets could be bought and owned. They've been taught that it could be owned and ravished, to the extent that the buying power of the buyer will allow him to enjoy. In the streets of our towns, the irresponsible man exercises his buying power for far much less than a wife’s troubles and obligations back home. A little package on the side – it's hassle-free. Abusive men are men who fulfil their sick fantasies by gratifying their perverted desires in the manner allowing them to feel in control – being the supreme animal. And tomorrow, he would do it again, not to the total stranger in the street – but to his next of kin.

For no matter how one looks at it, it’s a man’s world, as James Brown, the famous soul sensation belted out hurting all those years ago. It’s a man’s world but it becomes nothing, empty – without a woman or a girl. Perhaps this was true in the medieval era. To paraphrase Brown, Man can build bridges and planes and roads, but without a woman or a girl he’d do nothing. So traditionally a man is elevated to a lofty pedestal even before he could lift a finger, by virtue of being male. It implies that all knowledge, ability and industry is reserved for man, with a woman being only a ceremonial appendage that is needed for the comfort of a home. Hence lack of value of woman in man's eyes.

But in this era, it certainly does not hold water. In this day and age, the world belongs to a woman. And in my book the clothes that I wear have been designed and sewn by a woman. The car that I drive had been built by a woman. The research scientists that find cures are women. The train and plane that I board are operated by women. The food that I eat had been cultivated by a woman farmer in the remote, most rural reaches of the land!

I say this is a woman’s world! This is the age of the woman! And I say that we don’t have to realize this only when we have a woman as head of state! Hell, I am responsible for the health of millions of our people developing new products and painstakingly analysing the food ingredients that we consume any given minute... and we still believe it’s a man’s world?

Abusive man in society is oblivious to the fact that every time he swears at a young girl or his wife, by extension he swears at his mother. Every time he beats up a little girl or his wife to punish her mostly for the deed that the poor being didn’t do – he beats up his own mother and punishes her for simply being a woman who had given birth to him. Abusive men have adopted a defence mechanisms that hampers their ability to feel and reason as responsible citizens: all men are prone to such weakness no matter how progressive and active they are about women’s issues. They have this latent indifference in them, engrained in their psyche, that makes them all members of the same social batch.

Every time an abusive man abuses, rapes, harasses and painfully, forcefully penetrates a young girl or his wife, and leaves her bleeding, broken in spirit, shattered in life – by extension he also abuses, harasses, painfully, forcefully penetrates his own mother and leaves her shattered and broken in spirit!

And no average Joe, bearing witness to this degradation, stands up decrying this, and says NO! No man feels the pain and with genuine care shouts that it is ENOUGH!

For every woman in life is a mother of the nation. Every woman is a mother of an abusive man or abusive husband. Because men – the beasts we call men – collectively, by virtue of their masculinity, do share a common arrogant chauvinistic behavioural streak. And so every time a little girl or a wife gets hurt – every woman gets hurt, too, with the pain magnified to gigantic proportions. Every time a little girl or a wife gets beaten up and left bleeding, with torn blouse and exposed bra and bruises all over her body – every woman absorbs the pain.

Likewise, when every girl or woman or a wife gets raped, every woman in the nation is raped. Every time the beast we call man calls a girl or a woman a bitch or a slut, he also calls – refers in no uncertain terms – to his own mother....

Back to the women in the streets. The women who fascinated me are justly or unjustly, blamed for these problems. These are the women that we, one way or the other, insultingly call prostitutes. We do this blanket labelling without really seeking to investigate and understand myriad reasons that lie behind their decisions to resort to such a profession.

However, these women beg to differ!

I suggest that perhaps in their line of profession, and considering the nature of the their raw deeds, we should afford them the benefit – the privilege – of being different. For they prefer to plainly call themselves sex workers. They are sex workers because they have reasonable anticipation of a fulfilment of payment obligations by their clients for services rendered. Their contracts, which are always verbal and executed in trust – however unreliable verbal contracts are – are indisputable.

For the past fourteen years on my way to and from work, I have passed countless of these women. These women were prepared to brave the worst winter chills, the unrelenting summer rains, and the scary shadows to peddle their trade. In the early years in Mokopane they were quite a few. As the popularity of working the streets as a quick and easy means of acquiring a living grew, so did the number of women who enlisted to prostitute themselves. They chose to peddle in this trade, exposing their lives to untold dangers in the open streets and fields. They did so despite the huge, indelible stigma associated with prostitution. Their numbers grew in direct proportion to their ability to save face and shed embarrassment about their questionable profession. Their ability to become callous and indifferent intrigued me. Their nightly images became imprinted in my mind. I constantly worried about them. Each day I had unanswered questions.

In a sense, I became preoccupied with discovering who these women were, and what brought every one of them there. An urge to get to know about them and understand what constituted their character moved me. I had a burning desired to peel off the top layers of their hidden lives one by one and peer at the inner workings of their minds. I wanted to understand what compelled them to take the kind of decisions they did. Prostitution is probably the biggest decision a woman can resolve to take. What made these women hang their lives so publicly, without shame – where every potential for their abuse exists? Yet they choose to hit the streets and endure being tarnished, broken, called names, beaten, robbed... and sometimes killed.

In essence, what makes a prostitute's life tick?

The nature of my inquisitive mind compelled me to keep a diary of these people of the night earlier on. Note how I say these people, as if they're slimy gobs that do not belong to our human race. Such classification often leads to justification for their abuse because people