WHAT DO I TELL PEOPLE who ask me who I am?
I say I’m a recovered drug addict.
What drove me to drugs and prostitution was the anger and pain I felt after being gang raped at the age of nine. I did not choose to be a prostitute because I liked or wanted drugs. I was also not ‘forced’ into sex work. Some activist groups advocate that prostitution should be decriminalised because girls (and boys) are forced into this exploitation. But I feel strongly that we must recognise the social conditions that exist in our communities that support this type of exploitation. There were circumstances that led to my engagement in sex work and drugs, and I met these conditions before I was trafficked.
My mind flashes with ways of dealing with human trafficking. How could the traumatic events in my life have been avoided?
After I was abandoned by my guardians at the age of nine, I was raped by the members of a community gang. The community knew how the boys behaved, but did not act against them. Instead, they painted my mother’s house in shame, which cast me out of the Khayelitsha community. I was pushed to live under the bridge in Cape Town with other street people. It was while I was trying to escape this life that I was then trafficked by someone I thought was a good friend when I arrived in Johannesburg. So my prostitution was never due to ‘force’, but to the social circumstances that make children like me ripe for exploitation.
My rape happened in the comforts of my community. My trafficking happened within the comfort of friendship. Violence against women works at all levels.
Being a prostitute and trafficked for sex work at a young age disrupts education, and leads to illiteracy and gaps in acquiring knowledge. My street life made me sound savvy, but writing articulately is a different skill.
Some people get annoyed with me because I am so honest about what really happens out there among prostitutes. In my advocacy work, I stand up for young girls who have been forced into sex work – that’s my vision in life. There are ways to EXIT and stop this abuse, and it’s up to individuals, civil society, institutions and government bodies to determine effective and long-range measures.
As a survivor, I feel that organisations working to eradicate human trafficking are bringing out more information about this societal scourge, but are not necessarily pushing for change at all political and social levels. I have been through several years of healing and understanding about the importance of exiting, but I realise that organisational managers themselves do not have the capacity to change the sex industry. It is the survivors who have the knowhow – they should be leading organisations and NGOs to push for and enforce dynamic change in the sex work industry. Organisations and governments are called upon to act forcefully and sustainably to eradicate the causes of this abuse.
There is a desperate need for the message to get out:
Stop human trafficking.
I’m writing this book because of the pain the prostitution cycle has caused me. As I deal with my own healing and the trauma that goes with it, I am seeing how change works in closing the wounds.
I am now advocating for women’s rights and against the abuse of women and children. I’m doing this because once I woke up in a hospital bed after being beaten, drugged and enslaved. And I said to myself that for the rest of my life I would fight to make sure other girls did not go through what I experienced.
I want mothers to buy this book for their teenage daughters, fathers to buy it for their sons, friends to buy it for their girlfriends. Today I am Grizelda Grootboom, the name my mother gave me. Thank you for taking the time to get to know my story and find out who I am.
This work comes from my most inner being.
This must not be allowed to happen again.
For help call 08000 737283
Toll free national human trafficking helpline
Embrace Dignity
Since Grizelda walked into our office, we have been part of her incredible journey. She has also been an important part of our journey of the understanding the exploitation of trafficking and prostitution, and for this we are extremely grateful. We also wish to thank Grizelda for donating half the proceeds from the sales of this book to the ongoing work of Embrace Dignity in supporting ‘Sisters’ exiting sexual slavery and prostitution.
We wish to thank Carol Martin, social activist and retired educationist who recorded Grizelda’s story and transcribed all the recordings, from which the final book was edited and published.
Thanks to our publisher.
Embrace Dignity can be contacted through our website www.embracedignity.org.za