My name is Zinzi*. I am a sex worker and I am HIV positive. I work in the bushes along Baden Powell Drive, a road that goes past Khayelitsha in Cape Town, South Africa.
With COVID-19, things have been very hard for us. We are not getting any money because we are not getting any clients. Usually, I would go to the road at 8.30am and have my first client by 9am. But in the past two months, since the lockdown started, I have had only five or six clients a day in total. I might get a client by 2pm.
My clients are people who live around Khayelitsha. Usually, sex costs 70 rands (about $5), but now I might have to take much less – just to have something for food. I just have to take whatever he is offering.
