Video on child prostitution in South Africa

As shown on Special Assignment, SABC3.

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. 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.

According to the makers of the video, the numbers the social workers can help though is small, and most children turn back to prostitution.

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Originally shown in December 1998.

Video made available by Journeyman Pictures, an independent distributor of topical news features, documentaries and footage.