UNDERAGED GIRLS PROSTITUTES FOR CONDUCTORS, DRIVERS

MANZINI – A popular bar in the country’s hub is not only famous for its convenience and serving cold drinks, but also harbouring young underaged girls.

Some of the girls are as young as 12 years old and a majority, are below 18 years of age.
These young girls are provided with alcohol and cigarettes and later taken to spend the night with their ‘provider’ for a night of cheap sex. The providers are mainly public transport drivers and conductors. 

The next day the girls are brought back to the very same spot where they loiter in and around the bar while waiting for their next catch.
The discovery was made after the father of the 14-year-old maiden who was abducted and raped for nine days after the Reed Dance went looking for his daughter.

Relating how he discovered the place, Mandla* said he went around town looking for his daughter, describing what she looked like. Mandla said most of the people he approached in the public transport business suggested he went to search in the said bar.

purpose

“Two men even offered to accompany me there and said that was where young girls who seemed to have no clear purpose in life spent the whole day,” he said.

His indentify has been deliberately withheld as his daughter is a rape survivor.
However, when he got there he did not find his daughter but was met with several young girls, some of whom he said resembled his daughter whom he had described to the people he was enquiring from.
During an investigation by the Swazi News, it transpired that some employees in the public transport business and some Mozambicans, are regular customers of the girls.

Some drivers and conductors, upon the end of their day’s shift, visit this drinking spot to choose the girl of their choice to spend the night with.
The price is said to be accommodation for the night, food and enough money for drinks the following day.
When one of the undercover journalists entered the bar on Monday, there were three girls inside, one of whom who looked to be at least 12 years old sashayed, towards him.
Her friends watched as she made her move.  

Interviews conducted with some of the girls the following day revealed that if the provider is pleased with a girl he was with the previous night, he will give her strict instructions to be ready in the afternoon to be taken ‘home’ again.
She would be given money for food and also for alcoholic beverages to share with her friends while he is busy at work.

“The provider would pay regular visits to the bar during the course of the day to check on her as the public transport awaits its turn to load passengers at the rank,” said a man who assisted with directions to the place.
However, in the event he had other plans the girl would have to start searching for another potential partner for the evening lest she finds herself without a place to spend the night.

One of the girls explained that in the event she ended up without being a partner and being stranded in the midst of the night in the city, she would have no option but to go from one bar to another until dawn.

This, according to information gathered in an investigation by this publication, is where she is most likely to be molested and raped in her drunken stupor. Despite the danger, the girls always return to the bar looking for potential suitors. 

There are no age restriction signs or whatsoever as they parade in an out of the bar as they please in broad daylight.
The place is crowded with men, some of whom were spotted carrying ticket books. Others would occasionally fish some coins from the money bags commonly used by conductors when collecting fares from passengers, to add the playlist on the blasting duke box.

attraction

Others take turns in a game of pool on tables at the veranda.
On Wednesday, at about noon, at least six young girls, one of whom can be estimated to be less than 14 years of age, were the centre of attraction as they smoked and drank from almost every bottle of beer in the hands of some men who were enjoying their drinks.
Three, according to one public transport conductor, were new faces.

The clothes worn by some of these young girls sold them out. The youngest wore an oversize men’s shirt and oversize push-ins.
Her counterpart, who claimed to have dropped out of school after falling pregnant, even wore a muscle top and men’s shorts.

“These are all young girls who are supposed to be in school. Some are introduced by friends to this place and then it becomes a point of no return,” said one kombi conductor. Another said some of these girls now fear going back home and, therefore, go with anyone in the evening as long as that person provides booze, shelter and food.

“This is where you find them and this is where they go after being dumped the next morning because you can’t leave a stranger inside your house. They are used to the order; ‘lets go, I want to lock the house’ (phuma ngikhiye),” joked another.

scorching

Some of the girls were under the watchful eyes of their ‘partners’ who were cooling down from the scorching sun. As much as they looked obviously below the age of 18, they owned the dance floor as they flirted with other men, drank and smoked like it was normal, even with the bar’s management.

The owner of the property denied having anything to do with the daily operations of that place.
He said most of his properties are run by agents.

“That place you are talking about is in other people’s hands. Yours is to find the operators who will be in a better position to give comment,” he explained saying he also had no idea who runs the place at the moment.
“I know nothing about what you are telling me and I do not even know what business is going on there. Therefore, do not push me to comment on something I have no business about,” he said before abruptly ending the interview. 

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