- Coco, a 23-year-old student from Gqeberha, turned to sex work after losing her mother and struggling to care for her baby.
- She now studies at a public college with NSFAS funding but returns to sex work when her allowance runs out.
When Coco lost her mother in January 2021, her whole life changed. She was only 19, still in matric, and raising a baby on her own.
Her grandparents had passed away and her mother’s family lived far away in Ngqamakwe. After the funeral, she went back to Gqeberha with her baby, determined to finish school.
“I used the baby’s grant money to pay for daycare so I could finish matric,” said Coco. But it wasn’t enough. “I had to buy nappies, formula, food and pay daycare. I cried day and night. I dropped out.”
Her mother had always told her that education was the only way out of poverty. Desperate but determined, Coco spoke to a woman she knew who worked on the streets.
“That same night she helped me find someone to watch my baby, and we went to Central,” she said. “With the money I made, I bought nappies and a small container of formula.”
Coco stayed in sex work because it helped her survive. Later, she applied to a public college in Nelson Mandela Bay and received NSFAS funding for her studies.
“Life became better, but NSFAS isn’t reliable. Things are expensive, so sometimes I go back just to make ends meet,” she said.
Her biggest struggle comes when schools close for the holidays. “From December to April, there’s no allowance. I have to go back to prostitution,” she said.
“It doesn’t embarrass me anymore. I know why I do it — to survive and to give my child a better life.”
Pictured above: A woman.
Image source: Pexels
