MyWeku

Documentary: Child Prostitution in South Africa

Duration 23 mins: This was a very popular documentary when it was first released over a decade ago. Its age does not, however, take away from what is still seemingly an unsolvable problem in most countries across the globe. It is a touching documentary that will probably make you angry, frustrated and above all helpless.  Any portrayal of vulnerable children being sexually abused is often hard to fathom.

This is how the makers describe the film -  Standing at the side of the road two young girls pass time playing like children, until their pimp tells them to shut-up. Their friend 14 year-old Lindy, lifts her top to let a potential client inspect her wares. “They like to suck them because I’m young” she says. Following a girl on a job we confront her white client. His flies undone, he denies he knew how old she was and demands his money back. A passer-by comes to help him out. “He was just following a call of nature,” he says. Nobody knows how many children are working the streets. They stay here because of poverty, because there is no home to go back to and prostitution is all they can do to survive. Local police have given-up chasing the clients; “If you catch these people they won’t give evidence [against clients] because tomorrow they will be back on the street.” Instead social workers try to take the children into homes. The numbers they can help though is small, and most turn back to prostitution.