SEXY SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT GOES DOWNHILL
You know we are big on exposing the underground – hence our support of Special Assignment stories… we don’t say that we should believe everything we hear or see, but at least give it some time so you know what’s going on…
This Tuesday, we join the police in Port Elizabeth as they crack down on drug hotspots in the inner city. One of the main targets of the police rai…
ds is the Belvia Hotel in Govan Mbeki Avenue, home to Nigerian drug dealers and South African sex workers.
Earlier this year, Special Assignment broadcast a programme entitled “Uphill”, which showed that crime and drug dealing were flourishing in some of the most historic areas of Port Elizabeth. In “Downhill” we highlight efforts by the police to sort out those areas.
We also profile the lives of two sex workers and their Nigerians and discover just why a bond between them exists. Love has taken root and what was once merely a business relationship, is now an emotional one.
In this world of pimps and prostitutes, white women are seen as status symbols because they bring in more money. Says a sex worker: “Some Nigerians can have 5 girls at a time, depending on the money they bring in. Most of them start at a place like the Belvia Hotel and from there move to flats in PE. And the girls take pride in that. They say look what I gave my Nigerian – we have a flat, a car…”
But when the money isn’t coming in, the relationship changes.
Then she is not good enough any more. They don’t care if she dies or what happens. They will just go and look for another one.”
The Nigerians, who admit they sell drugs because they can’t find jobs, explain their presence in the city. “We are African. African men have to travel. Travel is part of education.”
The Eastern Cape MEC for Safety and Security, Thobile Mhlahlo, feels differently:
“We cannot allow people who say they are our brothers to smuggle drugs in this area. We have to behave in a regulated manner in this country.”
But the Nigerians dealers accuse the police of not behaving in a regulated way. “They will collect packets of ecstasy and then sell them back to us. So how can they say they are fighting for crime? It’s a very dirty business.”
This fascinating insight into the lives of Nigerians dealers and their women, against the backdrop of the city of Port Elizabeth, was produced by Jessica Pitchford, with camerawork by Byron Taylor and Ivan Oberholzer.
Tuesday 24 MAY 2005
SABC3
2130
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