“Streets have never been safe, but we do it for the sake of surviving.”  

These were the words of a sex worker seated on the side of the corner of Anderson and Goud streets in downtown Johannesburg. These are the same streets from which rape accused Sifiso Mkhwanazi picked up some of the six prostitutes he allegedly killed in 2022. 

The safety of sex workers in Johannesburg came to light last week at Mkhwanazi’s trial at the Johannesburg High Court, sitting in Palm Ridge. This week a witness, who is a sex worker, testified how she last saw one of the victims, Joyce Moyo, alive on Goud Street before she was found dead. 

Yesterday, a 42-year-old prostitute that Sowetan’s sister publication TimesLIVE met, said she has been following the Mkhwanazi case and even attended the proceedings when they were still held at the Johannesburg magistrate’s court. 

“I was shocked when I heard about the boy who killed sex workers. At the end of the day, we are people. We have kids, and selling sex on the street is not funny. It is because there are no jobs.  We also want to look after ourselves, support our families and put food on the table.  

“It shocked me, especially given it was people we knew and worked with. The one he picked up here is Joyce, we used to work with her on the side of the street. In my opinion, he must just rot in jail, he doesn’t deserve to live with people. 

“Even us as people who work on the streets, nobody cares about us, even the government doesn’t even care,” she said. 

She said she knew when she started working on the street that the streets were not safe.

The woman from Vryheid in KwaZulu-Natal arrived in Johannesburg in 2007 with her boyfriend and stayed in Yeoville and started trading in sex in 2017 after her boyfriend died.

Mbuli* from Mbabane in Eswatini said the streets were not safe but she needed money to survive. 

According to her, sex workers who are safe in Johannesburg are those who operate at End Street under the bridges. She said on that side there were bodyguards and rooms that sex workers could rent.

“Here it’s either they pick us up and go to their place or at the hotel. Afterwards, instead of taking you back, they take off all your clothes and leave you naked on the side of the road. By that time, they have already slept with you,” she said. 

She believes the only way for them to be safe on the street would be to work together as colleagues and in instances where a customer picks up as a sex worker on the street, they should be able to record the number plates of the car or take pictures. 

“We are afraid but what will we eat?” she asked, indicating that customers are often hesitant to pay for services.

“They do that, not everyone is willing to pay, sometimes you will fight with that person to give you the money but at times you will realise that you cannot win that battle, you just cry and it ends there.

“Some you will take them on but some you will see that there is nothing you can do about it. We don’t have bodyguards on this side, except under the bridge on End Street. The job is easier on that side because they are afraid of those bodyguards and there are rooms on that side,” she said.

Mbuli said she arrived in Johannesburg in 2017 but soon left during Covid-19 restrictions. She said at the time she used to earn enough money and would visit home regularly. 

She said after Covid-19, the business was bad and there was no money on the streets anymore.  

“When I arrived here I knew I was going to be a sex worker, I had already made a decision when I left my home country. I never came here for anything ... that was my job [sex work],  and hoping to change my life back home.

“Sometimes you earn R40 a day and when it's busy you could make R150. Today I haven’t made any money, so it is bad,” she said.

* Not her real name – TimesLIVE