Unemployed single mothers from Zimbabwe are turning to the streets of Johannesburg to feed and clothe their children.
The city’s by-laws prohibit begging at intersections, but this doesn’t deter the women.
“We just remove them from time to time and take them to the metro police office where we inform them of by-laws, but they usually return,” says Metro police spokesperson Wayne Minaar.
“Most of the mothers who beg with their kids are not South Africans and don’t have documents to be in SA, so they can’t apply for the child-support grant as they fear we’d send them back home,” says Zanele Mngadi, spokesperson at the national Department of Social Development
‘Sometimes when I’m lucky I get R100 a day.’
Nyasha Mapako and her two-year-old son beg at the Corlett Drive intersection in Bramley. She is from Zimbabwe and although only 24, looks much older.
Wearing a blue sarong, blue fabric sandals and a black T-shirt, she uses a faded black and white umbrella as shelter from the harsh sun.
Her son sits near Mapako on the pavement — next to their bottle of water — and waves at passing cars, as if performing an act he has been taught to perform.
A car pulls over and the driver hands Mapako half a loaf of brown bread. On this corner mother and son usually receive food, clothes and money.
“It depends, sometimes I get R50, R20, but sometimes when I’m lucky I get R100 a day.”
Mapako spends her money on disposable nappies, food and rent, which costs R50 a month for a room she shares with about 15 other Zimbabweans in Jeppestown.
“I’m tired of sitting here,” confesses Mapako.
Before coming to Johannesburg, Mapako worked at a pre-school but “because of the situation in Zimbabwe, I left and decided to come here to find a solution”.
Mapako said the father of her child ran away after finding out she was pregnant.
“I can’t find a job because I don’t have an ID and since I can’t take my child to pre-school, I have decided to sit here to look for piece jobs or anyone that can give me money or clothes.”
Mapako says she gets different reactions from drivers and their passengers.
“Some people shout, ‘Go away’, or, ‘The baby is very hot’, but others say good things.
“I feel offended.”
Mapako says she’s told her family about her life in South Africa and they have asked her to come home.
“If I don’t get a job I will go back,” says Mapako, who has been begging in Johannesburg for almost a year.
“I’m wishing to get a job … any kind of job.”
‘I have no one here.’
Mellisa Mazhungu (17) and her one-year and three-month-old son beg near the McDonalds on Glenhove Road, Rosebank. Mazhungu was 12 when she ran away from Zimbabwe to South Africa with six friends. She says she didn’t tell her mother where she was going.
Mazhungu uses her money to buy food and pay for her rent in Hillbrow.
“I make my R500 rent on the streets.”
“In one day I make R100 and something, in a month I make R1Â 000 and something.”
The teenager wears brightly coloured pedal pushers, a brown T-shirt and has faded blonde streaks in her hair.
Mazhungu used to work at a shop in the Eastgate mall, but left because “there was no-one to look after my son”.
At eight months pregnant, she was taken to Walter Sisulu Place of Safety in Johannesburg by a fellow Zimbabwean. She stayed there for four months.
As we talk, the young mother struggles to hush her baby, who keeps trying to grab my pen.
“I have no one here.”
“The father of my baby is in Mpumalanga; he doesn’t come and see his baby. The last time he saw me was when I was five months pregnant.”
Mazhungu, like Mapako, plans on going back to Zimbabwe.
“If I get R6Â 000 or R4Â 000, it’s fine, I can go back.”
Mazhungu’s baby boy wears a pair of dirty white pants and a colourful striped T-shirt.
While we talk, a smiling driver hands Mazhungu an apple, which her and her son munch on while we talk.
Mazhungu says she recently changed intersections, because where she used to stand “there were a lot of other people [beggers]”.
At the next intersection on Houghton Drive there are two mothers with their children.
‘My family doesn’t know what I do’
Patricia Mavu (30) and her seven-year-old daughter only hit the streets after school.
“After my child comes from school we come here. I’m doing it temporarily because I am not working.”
Mavu, also from Zimbabwe, has been in South Africa for three years.
She says while her asylum papers allow her to work, she hasn’t had much luck in finding a job.
“I want help to get a job. I got my papers with the money I get from the streets, but wherever I go they say they want men.”
Mavu started begging last year and admits, “It’s an easy way to feed my child.”
As we talk, Mavu’s daughter wanders off on to another street. She shouts at the child and then runs to collect her.
Mavu also stays in Hillbrow and pays R500 rent. She says she also came to South Africa “because of the situation in Zimbabwe”.
She has since been back to visit her family, most recently in December.
“My family doesn’t know what I do and I don’t want them to know. They think I’m working.”
Mavu says she makes between R30 and R50 a day during the week, but on weekends she can earn up to R100.
Mavu plans on returning to Zimbabwe soon, and is looking forward to seeing her 11-year old daughter who is staying with her deceased husband’s mother.
While I’m talking to Mavu, a metro police officer waits at the red traffic light. He looks at us briefly and as the light turns green, he slowly drives away.