TRAGIC ‘CARTE BLANCHE’ INSERT TOUCHES, SADDENS

Pretoria News - 28 February 1992

by Janet Smith

The tarts-with-hearts so amicably portrayed in Hollywood pulp like “Pretty Woman” and “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” were nowhere in evidence in a shattering look at Hillbrow prostitutes on “Carte Blanche” (M-Net on Sunday).

More like unsophisticated, brutal-textured versions of Jane Fonda’s Bree Daniels in “Klute”, these young women of the documentary allowed themselves to be filmed as they are ... toothless, spiking Wellconal, smoking Mandrax, embracing.

For once they were removed from the grimy, pain-infested hotel-rooms which most of them rent in Hillbrow. They were filmed in the haven of The House, a Berea refuge for young prostitutes who have tired - albeit temporarily, usually - of street-walking.

Derek Watts’ tone throughout was one of appalled distraction, as if he, too, was unable to fully absorb the destruction of beauty and youth - the two human ideals - as manifested in the utterly abandoned dependency of the hookers.

Watts is a compassionate interviewer who never intrudes on his subject’s answers and in this item, he was obviously deeply touched.

There was Cheeky, whose gentle, wide eyes and softly curling hair could have belonged to any 2o-year-old with a world of dreams inside her head.

Instead, Cheeky is and eight-year veteran at prostituting herself, her virginity lost at the age of 12 to a client at the escort agency where her mother worked as a receptionist and “sold” her for R150.

In a voice scoured by Mandrax - which also rotted several of her teeth - she said simply that she would only leave the business if she found another job that paid her “15-grand a month”.

She needs the money to keep up her drug habit which is the only reason she can survive having sex with strangers several times a day. Engaged in a lesbian relationship with another prostitute, Cheeky admitted she isn’t “that keen” on men.

And who can blame her?

With a radio mike attached to her body, Cheeky set up a liaison with a man whose response to her details of the acts she would perform and how much she would charge, was, “Everything has its price, doesn’t it?’

What he requested cannot be repeated in this newspaper, but the very idea that a sweet-faced young woman - whose life should be filled with parties and romance and her first real job - was about to pollute her being, was a tragedy.

A brief shot of his back and half-profile as he entered the hotel with her indicated he was young and well-dressed, and the make of his car showed he was probably quite successful in his job.

The horror is that the violation of Cheeky was clearly a fantasy-come-to-life for him and she was merely the receptacle.

A particularly moving case was that of a well-spoken young woman, 22 years old, who has been in the business since she was 14. The obvious question is, “Why?”

Sensitive viewers were warned the insert may upset them, and that it did. An image of a teenage girl injecting Wellconal into her thigh takes time to fade from memory. It had taken her more than an hour to find a vein.

Some may say this kind of reportage panders to the sensational, but it would be a shallow-hearted person indeed who was not deeply saddened.

The young couple who have given up their ordinary lives to run The House deserve the compassion of an affluent financial community. Scenes of the woman assisting a prostitute suffering the DT’s should reflect on the attitude of health care workers who allegedly turn junkies away when the arrive for treatment at provincial hospitals or municipal clinics.

Moral objections to prostitution have absolutely no place where a dart at death is imminent.

If this excellent piece of reporting has no other result than to bring the attention of subscribers the dread of life around them, it was worthwhile.

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