Welkom was once a thriving mining town with the potential
of being a well functioning medium sized city, in recent times it is a town
plagued by rampant governmental corruption exacerbated by an absentee
government. The lack of clear governmental leadership and political will
compounds the national problem of youth unemployment tenfold, the economic
prospects for youth in this town are almost nonexistent unless you are an
illegal miner which is a chat for another day. The summary of government here is
our mayor absconded from crucial ANC caucuses to go play cheerleader for Jacob
Zuma at the state capture inquiry.
The SASSA flex
Young people in South Africa are all caught in the pressure
social media creates, where we can all have a peek at the best moments of
someone’s week or month and assume they are living “their best life” which
often includes posing with alcohol and good looking people, young unemployed
women in Welkom in seeking out Instagram worthy moments have to carve up their
children’s child grants into budgets for food, clothing and alcohol and this
doesn’t serve you well if you only have one child because the budget becomes
smaller.
This creates a significant problem in the area of social
grants do we stop social grants to stop the pernicious culture that surrounds
them? Welkom clearly can’t afford to take in young children or the elderly unless
we want to see something worse than the life esidimeni tragedy. So the cycle
keeps going.
So here is how people “hack” the system if you can call it
that, first have 2 or more children you now have a budget of R800 or more to
work with next step, find children orphaned by the death of some obscure or
close relative that’s an additional R400 a child then the third and final step,
find an elderly relative the senior citizen grant is a little better than a
child grand meaning the senior citizen bears the brunt of the financial burden
of the household. Then essentially the “good times” can begin or at least for
the time being.
Prostitution
So the story is about to get a little darker than exploiting
orphans and old people. The issue of prostitution in small towns has been well
documented, Welkom has a building that sits next to a taxi rank called Khune
village it’s a weird hybrid between a tavern, strip club and brothel which is
willfully ignored by all authorities.
But a different kind of prostitution has taken root, I know
I painted a bleak picture for employment in this town but there are those who
are employed by both legal and illegal means. These become purchasers of sex
from the mothers who run out of SASSA grant money and younger unemployed women so
as far as I have worked out there are tiers to how the system works; the
“lower” tier is in the Industrial area of the town a stretch of Chinese and
Portuguese owned bars frequented by criminal types and low level illegal miners
and truck drivers. Most of the women who go here know most of the men in these
places are desperate for sex and make for easy customers, ready to buy 2 bears
and pay 50 rands for a few minutes with a woman oh by the way you pay R100 if
you don’t want to wear a condom and it’s at least R300 if you want to spend the
night.
The second tier are the more reputable places with the middle
class, politicians and high level illegal miners, where there isn’t an overt
drive for sex for cash but more an expectation of expensive alcohol and “Mavuso”
in the morning and sometimes being a side chick if some arrangement can be
arranged.
The sex for cash phenomenon is an even deeper conundrum that
benefits all spheres of patriarchy in this town and you will not hear any loud
calls from the men to help lift women from the material conditions that plague
women.
Sports betting
The first part of
this piece focused on women now question is what if you are an unemployed man
in Welkom who chooses not to be associated with illegal activities?
Well you enter the often under regulated world of online
sports betting since you don’t have access to any SASSA money you do odd jobs
and bet on sports religiously to make a living and try to live you “best life”.
The average unemployed young man in Welkom has more than
one sports betting app or website on their phone often because the sites have
some sort of initial credit for entry which is R100 or so. Admittedly at first
I thought in a less than ideal situation you get your money and living any way
you can, but it dawned on me how predatory these sites and apps can be, I’m not
a sports betting expert I always thought the winnings from betting depend on
the odds and the bet you put down but with these sites it seems like a hybrid
between betting on odds and the lottery, it seems there is a large pot and your
winnings depend on how many other people won so at times you win as little as 1
rand. Meaning to get any substantial winnings you have to bet on more obscure
leagues turning the betting into more of a gamble than a well thought out act
based on statistical data analysis and personal experience.
Gambling addiction is a plague but it comes harder to detect
when you are poor and loose everything you have every other week.
The economic prospects of this town are not about to change
anytime soon and so this game of prey and predator continues to the detriment
of the most vulnerable among us.
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