Teens selling sex for alcohol

Schoolgirls are selling their bodies beside illegal shebeens to earn money for alcohol.

Some teens as young as 16 openly admit to prostituting themselves to “sugar daddies” for cash.

The shocking revelation follows a Daily Voice investigation into the rise of underage drinking during the festive season.

Some girls confess that they turn to dirty old men who buy them alcohol in exchange for sex - because they cannot get money from their cash-strapped parents.

One 17-year-old Samora Machel resident, known only as Nthabiseng, says it’s easier to get money from guys at a shebeen than from her family.

“My parents don’t know that I drink so I get money from the guys I meet while I’m out partying,” she tells the Daily Voice.

“I don’t drink every day but I go out on weekends with my friends for some fun.

“We dress up and go out with just enough money for the first round of drinks because we know we will meet some guys there who are going to buy us some more.

“We’ll start dancing and chatting with them and then the drinks will come.

“It then means after partying we go somewhere and have sex.

“Usually it’s in the car or out in the bush.

“We don’t go to their houses.”

Some shebeen owners admit allowing teenagers into their drinking dens.

But they say they cannot always keep track of who they hang around with or leave the premises with at the end of the night.

“I’ve had my shebeen open for about five years now and I don’t usually sell alcohol to minors,” Phumla Madizeni, 40, tells the Daily Voice.

“Obviously these young ones try their luck sometimes to try and get in here - but I chase them away.

“But there are those who ask to stay and I let them because I know them.

“They come in to buy their beers and their ciders - I never ask where they get their money from.

“The younger ones usually come in groups, but I don’t interfere.

“The only time I ask questions, it’s for their age and when I tell them to leave when they start getting too drunk.”

The Daily Voice team witnessed groups of skimpily-dressed teenage girls openly drinking on the streets and dancing around drunk on the road.

And when the sun went down, the skirts got shorter - and the shorts even shorter.

Nthabiseng says the girls wear short skirts to attract more men.

“Guys only notice the girls with short dresses on and make-up,” she tells the Daily Voice.

“We dress up to look older so that we don’t get thrown out.”

Statistics released by the South African Breweries (SAB) earlier this year revealed that one in two teenagers in South Africa drink or has been drunk.

Many shebeen owners say they try to keep the teenagers out of their taverns by demanding to see IDs at the entrance.

But they admit it is hard to keep track of everyone on a busy day.

“Schoolgirls sometimes knock here at 6am while in uniform to buy beer. They often get very upset when I refuse to sell to them,” Babalwa Kenqa, 43, says.

“Once they are drunk, they have no respect for the elders, they stagger here down the road with older men shouting and screaming.”  (from IOL)

No space for baby

HOMELESS people in the Cape Town suburb of Table View have found a safe place tostore their valuables.

Unfortunately their storage facility is a special safe fitted with a hi-tech alarm system intended for desperate mothers to leave their babies if they cannot care for them.

The homeless, often referred to in the Cape as ''bergies'', have caused endless nightmares for Kim Highfield, the founder of Baby Save, which is geared at reducing the high number of abandoned babies in the province.

Last year, she had the safe mounted on to a wall of a church building in Table View. The metal structure is lined with a baby blanket and a pillow.

Once a baby is placed in the safe, an alarm is set off and within seconds Highfield receives an SMS.

Five minutes later Highfield is there to collect the baby and is always ready to help the mother.

Shortly after the project was launched in May last year, the bergies started causing trouble.

"The West Coast Family Centre very kindly said they would open the gates so the mother could walk in," said Highfield. "Instead, bergies moved in at night and their presence scared mothers away. They think the safe is a drawer to store their blankets, booze, clothing and toiletries. Sometimes they have heavy haversacks. Anything over 1.5kg lets off a signal and I get an SMS," she said.

I cannot not go. What if there is a baby there? I can't always assume it is them putting their wine and bedding in the safe."

Because of the problem, she was only able to help four babies.

Highfield will set up a similar project in the suburb of Muizenberg next year and hopes the Table View project can be saved.

Melany Kühn, spokesman for the MEC of social development, Albert Fritz, had harsh messages for the vagrants and advice for mothers.

"We strongly condemn this action by vagrants as it could eventually lead to a call not being responded to under the assumption that it's just another false alarm," said Kühn. We also appeal to mothers to seek any and all available help rather than dispose of their babies on rubbish heaps or dirt bins. This is tantamount to murder or attempted murder." (From Timeslive)

New shock for drunk drivers.

 Tell tale signs of drunk driving, and not blood tests, will be enough to land motorists in trouble with the law as the authorities seek new ways to crack down on the problem before the festive season.

Now, the authorities announced in a joint show of force on Friday, they will turn back to an existing charge of “driving under the influence of alcohol” - rather that the more commonly used “driving with a blood alcohol limit over the legal limit”, which necessitates blood testing - which means drunk drivers could be fined up to R180 000, or face as long as nine years behind bars.

Blood tests are not necessary to secure such a conviction, traffic authorities, police and prosecutors confirmed during a press conference yesterday, which was hosted by the provincial traffic department, the provincial police and the National Prosecuting Authority.

With roadblocks planned across the province during the holiday season, traffic officials will instead be looking out for the telltale signs of inebriation – unsteadiness and an inability to perform simple tasks, such as walking in a straight line or picking up a bunch of keys.

The NPA’s Mark Wakefield said that instead of simply sending suspects for blood tests, traffic officers at roadblocks would primarily search for signs of drunk driving, to use as evidence in court.

The news has, however, already prompted a top criminal attorney and a forensic expert to warn that relying on the observations of law enforcement officials to determine sobriety could be risky.

William Booth warned the authorities that their change of tack would not be without its challenges. There could be a number of innocent explanations for behaviour which could be construed as drunkenness, he argued.

Forensic expert Dr David Klatzow agreed, pointing out that the rate at which alcohol was absorbed differed between people. The observations of law enforcement officials, including that a suspect’s eyes were bloodshot or he was unsteady, would also not be able to stand up in court when challenged by a skilled cross-examiner.

Klatzow’s view was that authorities should instead focus on ensuring that forensic laboratories, which test blood samples, work efficiently.

Over the past five years traffic officials have arrested 800 to 1 000 motorists a month for offences related to drinking and driving.

To date, the NPA has had a 90 percent conviction rate.

David Frost, head of traffic management in the Western Cape government, said more than 30 000 of the 31 323 blood samples sent for testing returned positive.

The change in focus comes about two months after a Western Cape High Court judge found that the State had not proved the blood test results in a drunk driving case, because it hadn’t followed proper procedures. (from IOL)