A Story
Thandi never planned to become a prostitute. Who does? But, she did need a job. A friend returned from Cape Town and told her a beauty parlor was looking to hire a receptionist. He gave the pretty nineteen year-old the advert in the paper and helped her make the call. On the phone, she is told there’s no experience necessary! With the recommendation from her friend, she’s hired right on the spot!
Thandi’s new employers pay for her bus ticket and promise her a place to live. She packs her small bag, kisses her family goodbye and heads off to her new life in Cape Town with a smile on her face.
When Thandi arrives in Cape Town, she is given a “work” wardrobe and a room in a flat, which she is to share with five other girls. Her first day at work, Thandi is driven with her roommates to her new place of work, a massage parlor. It only takes a matter of minutes for her to realize she’s in a brothel. Many of the girls working there are from foreign nations, China, Eastern Europe and Thailand, and all the girls are all prostitutes.
Thandi will clean and work as a receptionist, but she won’t be paid what she was promised. In addition, she now owes the massage parlor bus fair, money for her new clothes, room and board. She is not allowed to quit or return home until she works off this debt.
The only way to pay this debt and still make enough to survive is to perform sexual favors for the clients. Thandi and the other girls are never left alone, driven to and from work every day and not allowed to have contact with anyone outside of the massage parlor. Thandi considers calling the police, but realizes quickly, the brothel pays several of them to keep quiet. The owner threatens to hurt her family back home if she tries to escape.
But, Thandi is a strong, bright girl and refuses to perform sexual acts as part of her job. Eventually, her owners grow weary of her protests. She is subjected to rape and torture until she finally agrees to sell herself. Then, she’s forcibly addicted to drugs to keep her subservient. In a few short months, this bright student is addicted to ‘tic’, on call twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, and sleeping with up to thirty men per day. When she is no longer considered fresh, her life of slavery will not end. She will be sold from the upscale massage parlor she works in now, to a pimp and will work the streets.
