FISH HOEK TEENS HAVE SEX FOR DRUGS

Girls as young as 13 and 14 from the relatively upmarket Fish Hoek valley
are going into neighbouring townships to prostitute themselves for drugs,
often still dressed in their school uniforms.

There are reports of the young teens having sex with multiple partners to
get their hands on their drugs of choice, making themselves vulnerable to
HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases.

And it's not limited to girls. Young boys are also selling sex for drugs.

The legal age of consent for heterosexual sex is 16 and 19 for homosexual
sex. Those who have sex with children under these ages, even with their
consent, are committing statutory rape.

John Malcolm, a spokesman for the Fish Hoek Drug Crisis Centre, says he
regards what is happening as "consensual rape".

He said the first avenue for many youngsters was to sleep with their
usually much older dealers to get drugs.

"There's also a lot of sexual predation in schools where school boys
dealing in drugs expect sexual favours in return."

Damian Johnston, director of the non-profit Drug Education Agency, said
many youngsters granted sexual favours for drugs.

"We have cases where young girls of 13 and14 years are sleeping with two or
three dealers to get hold of drugs. And it's happening across the board."

Malcolm said a lot of children were abusing multiple drugs, some as many as 10.

He said that in addition to tik (methamphetamine), which was hugely popular
at the moment, heroin was growing in popularity and becoming cheaper.

"Heroin addiction is like a tidal wave heading towards us and this country
is going to be blown apart at the seams because there is no infrastructure
to deal with it."

The heroin commonly available in the Western Cape is called "Thai white" as
opposed to "brown sugar" from Tanzania. It costs between R30 and R50 for a
quarter of a gram, usually enough for four to six doses.

The Cape Flats has always had a reputation for rife drug addiction but
Malcolm said the South Peninsula had as bad a problem as anywhere else.
"I've heard of children as young as eight doing tik." Yet parent apathy was
startling and the government was doing too little too late.

Malcolm said he believed specialist police units were necessary to work
undercover to bring down the drug kingpins. "At the moment, these dealers
operating around here seem untouchable."

He said the Fish Hoek Drug Crisis Centre was getting calls from as far
afield as Wellington, Worcester, Butterworth in the Eastern Cape and
Zastron in the Free State all with the same complaint - their children were
going "ballistic" on tik.

Yet, Malcolm said, when he organised drug talks at schools, hardly any
parents turned up.

"Unless something is done urgently, this country is going to come apart and
we'll see crime waves like never before."