Slave wages and slave-like restrictions on job mobility — that’s what a Bulgarian stripper says she encountered while working for strip club owner Lolly Jackson (50).
Jackson, owner of the Johannesburg ”adult club” Teazers, appeared in court this week on four charges of contravening the Immigration Act, including keeping the passports of workers in his office. He was released on R20 000 bail and will reappear in court in November.
The Mail & Guardian has in its possession a sworn statement made by the Bulgarian to the South African Police Service in March this year.
The woman, who says Jackson confiscated her passport while she worked at Teazers, is understood to have returned to Bulgaria last month on temporary travel documents provided by the Bulgarian embassy.
In her affidavit, she says she ended up paying nearly all her earnings to Jackson and her Bulgarian controller while working at the club for almost a year-and-a-half. When she wanted to move to another establishment, Jackson refused to return her passport.
At a media conference on Tuesday, Jackson joked that he kept his workers’ passports to prevent them from ”running away with a rich farmer”, adding that foreign dancers sometimes lost their documents. By keeping them, he ensured he did not get into trouble with the home affairs department.
”It is in my foreign employees’ contract that I should keep their passports for two reasons — that they may want to illegally settle in South Africa and for security reasons,” Jackson told journalists.
He also claimed to ”run a clean business” — but the Bulgarian’s account gives a rather different picture.
In her statement, the woman said a man she had met in Bulgaria, who was called Hristo, told her about stripping in South Africa and that the women ”get paid good money”.
Desperate to escape poverty she accepted an air ticket and was flown to South Africa. At a meeting with Jackson he told her she would have to pay him a ”levy” of R1 000 a week. Her ”controller”, Slamka, also took half of her earnings.
”At the beginning I had to give him all the money I earned as I had to pay for my [plane] ticket.” No connection between Slamka and Jackson is alleged.
After three months, Slamka began demanding R3 000 from her in cash every Friday. She also paid him rent of R1 500 a week for a room she shared with other strippers.
In April last year, Slamka offered to pull some strings to get her a work permit — but only if she paid him R8 000.
By the beginning of this year, the woman says, she had nothing, despite earning good money.
When she decided to stop paying Slamka she says he accused her of hiding money from him and punched her in the face. She appealed to Jackson for help and job security — he responded by demanding her passport in exchange for her continuing to work for Teazers. She says Slamka kept showing up at the club, asking for her.
”So I decided there and then that I wanted out of Teazers, Lolly Jackson and Slamka,” she said. ”I did not tell anyone I was leaving Teazers, I just did not go back there.”
The following week she asked another strip club, The Lounge, about possible employment, and was promised a job if her work permit was valid.
However, Jackson still had her passport. The Lounge management promised to help recover it, but police suddenly appeared on their premises carrying a photograph of her and wanting to know her whereabouts.
”I immediately formed the opinion that Lolly Jackson had sent the police here to look for me,” she said. ”I am therefore now very afraid that I will be either arrested and deported or that even worse things could happen to me.”
Contacted for comment on the woman’s statement, Jackson said he was too busy.
‘I’m an egoist’
Teazers owner Lolly Jackson loves to describe how he, the son of a Greek corner cafÃ