South Africa's "Exploding" Child Sex Slave Trade

In an article reported yesterday in South Africa's The Star, we learn that there are an estimated 10,000 child sex workers roaming the streets, often disappearing and then turning up murdered in Johannesburg and surrounding areas.

The House Group, an organization working in Hillbrow, South Africa estimates that 40% of sex workers in Johannesburg are under 18, and the demand for child prostitutes, especially for black children, in this area has been on the rise for the last few years.

Karyn Maughan reports in The Star:

Children as young as 9 are selling their bodies on the streets of Joburg for R30 ($4.50 US)--and child rights groups say the situation is "exploding".

In a series of interviews with child sex workers, streetchildren, clinic staff and community workers, The Star has uncovered that the commercial sexual exploitation of boys and girls is booming.

And, as the brutal unsolved murders of three suspected teenage sex workers and growing numbers of HIV-related deaths of child sex workers have shown, these children are unlikely to make it into adulthood or out of Hillbrow's brothels alive.

Various teenage sex workers in Hillbrow have claimed that at least three girls, aged between 14 and 17, had recently vanished after getting into cars with prospective clients.

This week South Africa launches "Child Protection Week", an ongoing initiative to make this country, especially Johannesburg, more "Child Friendly", a place where children need not fear walking home from school, getting raped and being hassled to buy drugs.



Winnie (above), 16, Naturena speaks out about this culture of disrespect for children in a 2002 article published on the City of Johannesburg website:

The men in the streets follow us. They tell us to go to their houses, and there are a lot of those kinds of men around. If we go to the libraries then the people there tell us that they want to be our friends, and then they follow you home and rape you. If someone has raped a girl, then the next day he is out of jail. That doesn't make sense. My cousin was raped when she was four years old and when she finally told someone, the man threatened to kill her. If you are wearing a short skirt and you go to catch a taxi at the Bree or Noord Street ranks, some of the drivers force you to take off your clothes, and tell you that if you want to wear short dresses, then you better go naked. I know that's happened, I've seen it happen to young girls.