Grizelda Grootboom from South Africa survived apartheid, homelessness and decades of sexual abuse. Now a famous author and survivor activist, Grizelda is interviewed by Luba Fein about her escape from a life of prostitution.

Grizelda Grootboom was born in South Africa during the apartheid era. She had been struggling with street life during most of her childhood. At the age of 18, she entered the sex trade and survived there for 18 years. In 2016, she published her groundbreaking book "Exit", in which she revealed her life journey and the process of exiting prostitution she went through. Today Grizelda lives in Cape Town with her young son and fights not only for herself but also for other prostitution survivors.

This episode is part of our ‘ #ListenToSurvivors podcast series.

Follow Grizelda on Twitter here.

Listen Here (Transcript Below):

Transcript:

Luba from FiLiA in conversation with Grizelda Grootboom.

L – Could you tell us a bit more about yourself. Where you are in the world, what projects you are involved in?

G – I am from South Africa, Western Cape, Cape Town in the informal settlement Khayelitsha. I am a survivor of sex trafficking and prostitution. I am the author of the book called ‘Exit’. I am also the founder of Survivor Exit Foundation. I am busy with awareness and prevention and doing workshops around my book with human trafficking and prostitution.

L – You became famous thanks to your fantastic book Exit. The book depicts your childhood as a street kid and your journey in the sex trade and your way out of it. I have learned a lot about ethnic groups in South Africa during apartheid.

There were whites on top of the social, economic and legal hierarchy. There were Xhosa group who were denied any rights or citizenship and others who had limited rights. I know you are Xhosa. Could you elaborate on Xhosa women, their culture and their lives in the racist society?

G – The Xhosa were the tribe you would see when you walk around the Eastern Cape where the first black president the late Nelson Mandela was from. When you go to the Eastern Cape the map was mostly created by the Xhosa. The Xhosa were a tribe that were very peaceful. They ate a lot of ostrich eggs; they ate spring bok meat. They lived in huts they created as they travelled. They were not into land grabbing or land claiming by racial regimes because they moved around quite a lot. So when you move around Eastern Cape, there are caves and mountains where you see their drawings they have left behind as their heritage to prove that they had been there.

For me as a child I decided to learn that they were the first black individuals. They were also in the mix between the Xhosa and the Khoisan and that is a discussion of understanding of who became the Xhosa after the Khoisan and how did they become Xhosas after the Khoisan.

My heart and my soul tells me they were the first ever from the Eastern Cape. Even if you see certain Xhosa peoples up to this day, there’s a heavy physical resemblance of them looking like the Khoisan, the cheek bones are higher and there’s a lot of light skin in them. The two tribes look very similar and the language is also similar because when you speak to the Khoisan, there’s a click and a tick that is in the Xhosa language. When you speak to the Xhosa’s there’s a click and little bit of fluent pronunciation of language and that is the proof there’s a mixture of the Khoisan and the Xhosa’s.

During the time of apartheid, it was painful. I just learned recently, I met my dad’s mum and she is from a village called German village. That village was controlled by the Germans. My late grandmother was living in the same apartheid’s houses made out of mud and wood and still up until last year she couldn’t change the house because the house was assigned to a descendent from Germany.

My grandmother stayed in that house because her mother also stayed there and they stayed in that house as slaves. It was really hard for her to change the house into a home because the rights of the land still belonged to the descendants of Germans meaning the white people in South Africa have kids from the slavery German people in that village who have the right to that land. My granny could not change the house. She was still living in that house.

When you go to Eastern Cape you will see there’s a lot of Xhosa old women who still live in that condition because they are told the land does not belong to them. It’s extremely sad because it’s 20 years now since the abolishment of apartheid and yet we still have a problem with women from the Xhosa and the Khoisan Tribe still cannot build their own house on the land they were enslaved at.

The apartheid went from there into people finally coming to a mind of mobilising themselves to be independent which was extremely violent and hard. A lot of people died and were killed for standing up for right to have water and food, let alone to have an identity, an ID book, which we called the passport or visa of who you are.

Before we see the amazing history of what the world sees, Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and all of those people who fought, but before them there was the Khoisan, the Xhosa kings and those people literally suffered so much from the racism when the white people came.

It was the Germans, those from Holland, the British and all of them came to South Africa and just took over land and up to this day we are still struggling in the battle of claiming land and having our land back.

L – You were part of a group and despite the fact this group had certain rights under apartheid, your family has suffered with poverty and discrimination. Your parents lived in slums. They did not always have employment. The authorities demolished your father’s neighbourhood.

How did apartheid limit your parents’ opportunities?

G – It was so limited. We lived in the city of Cape Town and not far from District 6, a very famous tourist destination in the Western Cape. They call it District 6 where all the coloured people were staying. They used to have a very colourful life in what they did and their culture. When I was 8 years old, the beginning of coloured people being removed from their homes, was taking place. I can still clearly remember being 8 years old and feeling the community being so down and seeing house to house being cut off in front of me and seeing big trucks coming.

At first I thought, no, they’re probably going to give us better houses but I knew we had great houses, we had strong houses. For me, when that happened, my dad used to disappear and come back in the evening extremely drunk. I remember the last house on the corner was our house. My father came and said – we need to go to the harbour because there are some fishes we need to go and get so he would be able to sell them. I said, okay, we need to go back home and he said, no, we need to go to the shelter. That was a shock to my system. We actually don’t have a home anymore.

The shelter was not even far from my area either. That was the beginning of me becoming homeless, of me becoming lonely, of me being outcast, of me being lost in the same community and environment that I thought would a forever home.

L – So, you’ve been living on the streets since the age of 9 or in the shelters?

G – In a white world it would be the same situation as yours, with poor parents, parents not able to raise their children.

L – So you had been living on the streets and sometimes in the shelters, how would it have been if you had been white? How would it have been different?

G – If I had been white my life would have been extremely different. I would have had assistance of a good shelter or a boarding house where I would be able to get counselling, education, I think today I would probably finish my schooling, I would probably have my own home. It would have been extremely different.

I would have been rescued within a week from the streets. If I was white, I would probably get assistance to go to a good healthy environment and school. If you come to Cape Town, you will see that there were lower working class white people but they were staying in an area that was very white, very rich white.

We used to walk around, us street kids, the streets and see a lot of developments that were unfair and an injustice to us and it made us feel like we were not wanted as black street kids. We saw a lot of white people living their lives and seeing us but not finding any help. So if I had been a white person I would be much better off than I am today.

L – In 1994 apartheid was abolished. In your book you have described an independent celebration and the shelter kids participated.  But after that nothing has changed for you? You went back to your shelters and your lack of opportunities? So who was actually affected by the change in South Africa? Which social or ethnic groups were given more options?

G – I still remember that day on the parade. The people who got more out of the abolishment of apartheid were the Xhosa’s. Nelson Mandela was the first black president and he came from the Xhosa tribe. Also the Zulus who had Shaka Zulu fighting the British and for that he received appreciation. Those were the people we see in the first grand celebrations for 10 years.

The people who got left out was mostly the coloured people. The normal average South African citizens. Up until today they are still suffering quite a lot of corrupted gaps that these 2 tribes did. The rights to land and economic rights are still not changed from the white man’s government. So there’s 3 tribes holding South Africa in apartheid trauma and depression because we still see some fights going on.

The coloured people are still the people who are suffering. We still don’t have our culture back. Just the Western Cape itself is governed by a white government. If you want to have a job in the Western Cape, if you want to be living your normal caring life you have to vote for the democratic alliance and that is a white government. They run the Western Cape. It was founded by a German journalist called Helen Zille and her policies and her laws, when it comes to assisting black and coloured people in the Western Cape, is extremely hard. It is still poverty where she feels like we don’t deserve good toilets or clean water or land because we don’t know what to do with it. The coloured people have decided to go violent on each other and that’s another sign of how the white government is enjoying because those are the people that still did not benefit from this apartheid celebration joy of getting back our freedom.

I remember as a young kid wearing this big T shirt standing among so many black men and screaming freedom and today there is still no freedom for women and girls in this country, especially black and coloured women and girls in South Africa. We do not see freedom, instead we see shackles on our freedom.

L – I’m sorry to hear about it. Now let’s talk a little bit about the sex trade.

In your book you criticise the activists who claim that women in South Africa are forcibly prostituted. You say it’s not always a matter of physical coercion. Sometimes it’s a matter of circumstances. What circumstances cause the women like you to enter prostitution?

G – My circumstance was because I was a street kid and somebody, a friend, took advantage of me. She didn’t feel the need to care about what I’d been through, instead she took advantage of it. When she transported me to another city, I thought I was going to get an opportunity. This is the sort of language apparently for us black women. If somebody is going to give you a good opportunity, your desire as a black woman, the opportunity is to get work to take care of your family. You trust this person to understand that. When you trust them they decide to use you for something else.

When I got to Johannesburg to meet up with her, I didn’t have the slightest idea that this was going to happen to me. When she welcomed me into the flat I was like ‘wow’ my life was about to change. When I walked into the room, there was nothing, I had no questions to ask because I knew this was going to be a whole new life for me.

I was woken up by 3 African black men, they kicked and undressed me and put tape around my eyes and behind my knee, it was like, I thought I was in the wrong house and that the same thing was happening to her. When the first guy held my head, laid me down, bend me over, then I knew this was me going to be sexually exploited like a dog. It started to happen every day.

When they kicked me out in the middle of the night and brought a younger girl who I thought had never been through any sort of pain, was when I knew that the house was a place where they exploit women and girls and traffic them.

The thoughts in my head as I walked out of the house trying to find where I came from, trying to find drugs, trying to find my friend. I thought in my head ‘I thought I came here for a better opportunity, I thought I trusted the person’ That is the language that is being manipulated right now. Western organisations called SWEAT call it sex work, they feel it’s the only form of assistance for a woman who comes from poverty and vulnerability. Now they try to manipulate survivor’s language of the true story of how they get pulled in or recruited or manipulated into the sex trade because there’s a need for a job.

I’m trying to wrap it around my head, why is sexual exploitation the only job for the same black woman in South Africa, in Africa, where we’re trying to recover from slavery? Why is this oppression still going forward at this level and this time on women?

I feel it’s not just the fault of those pushing the narrative, it’s also the fault of everyday black African men who have always put the culture of women should not be equal to men. Every day I see myself going to Europe. People are pushing to say that women and girls should sell their body for money. It is not an agenda that comes from those women. It’s an agenda that comes from the same white people who are benefitting economically from women’s bodies.

They do not want to give us the freedom or right to become what we’ve always wanted to become, owning land and becoming the Africans we’re supposed to be. For me that’s the problem.

L – You mentioned the people who push the ‘sex work’ narrative. I’m playing devil’s advocate here. Those people who say if the sex trade becomes completely legal, it could be less violent and less dangerous. Maybe legal strip clubs and legal prostitution would make the sex trade less harmful for you and other women?

G – I’ve experienced that legal strip club and legal safe guarding. There is no legal safe guarding. The last brothel I worked with was advertised in Newspapers and porn sites as a gentlemen’s club. It was owned by a white woman and a South African husband who was working for the South African military.

In this brothel, when you walked inside you would think’ it’s just stripping’ but on the other side of the same brothel there were 3 bedrooms that had different kinds of themes. It was mostly 5 or 10 white girls, 2 or 3 coloured girls and 1 black girl which was me and sometimes there would be another black girl. There was never such a thing as the legal safeness of it.

Every client I had every friggin’ day and hour in that place gave me the consequences of health problems. Every day it gave me a high level of using drugs and alcohol. You would probably OD twice a month. That is because the clients who came in were so many per night and for you to keep up with that with your body, your mind and your private parts, it was like every 3 minutes you would need a fix. There were times we had to put stuff in our vaginas, we had to take drugs just to stay awake. You are sleepy, you are out. There were times we were bleeding in places you’re not supposed to bleed because men used to come in drunk. Men came in who were doing the sexual fantasy because of the rituals they were doing and they needed to get it off on us.

There was no time that you as a woman, as a human being, that you could rest. The rest you get is in the hospital or you’re resting in your house taking medication to recover. That only happens when you have something really bad. You OD’d or cops came in or there was a fight between 2 clients.

Sometimes there would be drug dealers coming in, sometimes men who were doing a lot of criminal work and they would come and relax with us in the brothel and there would be fights breaking out and guns going off.

So there’s no safety in the legalisation of prostitution. There were so many girls having abortions because some men wanted to feel their monies worth so they didn’t feel the need to wear a condom.

Even up until today, I am still suffering a lot from the violence and with my health.

L – Another argument from the ‘sex work is work’ argument is; They say if we abolish the sex trade, what will all the poor women do? Where will you go if the sex trade is banned? What do you say to the people who say prostitution is appropriate for destitute women?

G – The poor woman is the same woman as the poor black child who has an education but cannot get a job. People are not getting jobs in South Africa because of a corrupted government. The poor woman is most of the time the poor immigrant who has been labour trafficked into South Africa and gets threatened by individuals who tell them ‘if you don’t work in this factory you are going to be put in prostitution’. The poor woman is the woman who is afraid to go back home because she knows there’s a law that says if you’re illegal in a country you’re going to be locked up. Even though she was brought in by labour traffickers or forced trafficking.

So when we speak about the poor women, we’re speaking about the poor woman who is being betrayed by the government who is not creating the jobs for women. We’re speaking about the poor woman who has been trafficked through poor borders and bought by traffickers and pimps, also the organ trafficking that also happens. So when we speak about the poor woman, we shouldn’t just speak about just because she is poor. She is poor because of the system because of a racial system, an unfair government system and that is why women are poor.

Women do not want to be on the street. We go on the streets every night to see that women are going and find out if they want to exit. Some of them are so afraid to exit because there are pimps who are holding their children and their documents, they are all South Africans so when we talk about the poor woman we should be talking about a way for them not to be poor but not the sexual exploitation way but a way for them to be developed and economically sustained. That’s what we should be talking about for a poor woman.

L – Today you live in the poor neighbourhood where you grew up and were exposed to a lot of crime and violence. You still live there and are raising your son.

How would you like your future to be? Would you like to live in a better neighbourhood or to stay there and change the community from within?

G – At this point Khayelitsha has become notorious. We hear gun shots every day. We hear of rape cases of under 14s every day, we hear of women being femicide killed every day. My dream would be, I would love to change Khayelitsha and my community but because of political corruption and male power corruption and violence growing, it seems like alcohol and drugs are pushed into our community. I wouldn’t want my son and I to stay there. I would love to move into an environment that’s clean and that my mind does not have to into anxiety or depression every time I hear gun shots or every time I go and help a girl who just got raped. At this point I just want to get my own home with my son. I want a decent living where I can take care of my child and he goes to school and have a better life than what I had. That’s all I desire. Also helping other women survive and the victims who want to come out of sexual exploitation.

My dream world at this point in the next 5 years is to get out from Khayelitsha, move into my own apartment with my son, have a good living and take care of my son, him going to school and maybe start writing books about other women survivors because the fear of telling your story inside South Africa is like you need to watch over your shoulder every day.

The justice system still don’t listen to what we have to say. They call us all kinds of names when we speak up. They bring up all kinds of constitution justice rights for the perpetrators. A lot of survivors just go under. They get lost in depression and anxiety and commit suicide.

Nobody wants to talk about that. Survivors don’t want to talk about that fearing violence.

For me I want somebody to come and help me escape with exiting this violence.

L – You have founded Survivors to help other survivors. Can you elaborate a bit about these projects?

G – At this point it’s not fully functional because there is no assistance. It’s more of a foundation where we try our level best to do a lot of prevention and go out and speak about my story so I can help other organisations. Mine is just a foundation where I am able to sell my books. If I get a little money from that, I have to help myself because I don’t get full assistance from any other organisations or source.

During the Covid it was extremely hard, we had to ask other people for help for health care, the healthcare sub didn’t come through. So it’s just a foundation where I have decided we’re going to do more awareness and prevention.

Sometimes I use the money to help the women to bail them out of jail or to take care of their kids. Most of the women do not want to be known and are afraid to go into safe houses. They cannot get full assistance to be in rehab. to get off drugs or substances, which is the first need that needs to be taken care of before they can even book into a place.

My foundation, we do 1 or 2 when we have financial support. If no financial support, I am part of a Task Coalition where organisations come together and if we get a victim who needs immediate assistance, I contact the organisations, tell them there’s a case and they take the person and put them somewhere if they can. The ‘If they can’ is the most painful one when we talk about combatting individuals who have been sexually exploited unfairly. The ‘If’ is a big problem for me the ‘but’ is a big problem for me. Those are the questions victims get. If you’re a victim and you want to come out, the last thing you need is the word ’if’ on a rescue for your life. That is what the foundation is trying to fight against.

L – You’re also a volunteer for the Survivor-led Embrace Dignity. Could you tell us about that?

G – Embrace Dignity is an organisation that fights on the law reform for decriminalisation of prostitution. They help survivors exit in ways with skills. At this point they have moved away from that because they also don’t get much funding to help survivors exit. So they’ve decided to stick to one thing and that is the law reform of decriminalisation, the Equality law and the Nordic Model law.

I’m an abolitionist and Embrace Dignity helps me to write my book and also to get me on amazing platforms to tell my story so I can push on the abolitionist of the sex trade. I learned quite a lot from them. Embrace Dignity has assisted quite a lot of survivors over the last 10 years to be on their feet, but to be consistent was extremely hard. They still exist, it was founded by Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge she’s a very beautiful, kind woman who has been doing this work and we appreciate her every day in the work that she does. If it was not for her I don’t think people would ever think that woman would want to come out of prostitution because people think women want to be there for the need of selfish desires.

So, Embrace Dignity has really assisted South Africa to have the debate and have the conversation. If it wasn’t for Embrace Dignity I don’t think we would have the conversation in South Africa about what prostitution is in South Africa.

L – You have been through so much yet your story still awaits a happy ending. You don’t have a full time stable job or a laptop to write your next book but you have so much motivation, inner strength and talent. You ae a terrific writer and speaker. Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?

G – I see myself launching my 2nd book, global survivors in one conference, just survivors discussing the most combatting ways going forward of ending it. I see myself having my own home with a bathroom, my son being the greatest guy ever, finishing school. I see myself also having the most amazing talk show where I’m the host and speaking to survivors and making them feel comfortable in who they are. That is what I’m dreaming for. I’m hoping to get a full stable income where I am able to do what my heart desires. And what I speak about every day and that is ending sex trafficking and prostitution.