They wake up at three every morning;
They are breadwinners at their tender ages;
They fend for their little brothers and sisters;
They buy freezits (cool drinks) in large quantities and sell them at the bus terminus;
They are seen wandering in the scorching sun;
They walk barefooted in the dirty streets;
Selling their goods as a way of earning money for food;
They stare at you as if you are someone they know;
Back at home the little ones can't stop crying because of hunger;
They can not do a single chore because they are weak;
They await the return of their brother and sister;
They wait for a long time and decide to go with their elders the next day.
They are forced by poverty to work for themselves;
They have no adult to look after them.
THEY ARE THE AIDS ORPHANS.
By
Alex Ingwani
and
Bernard Pungu
Perseverance leads to priviledge but without hardwork they'll be no success. Being a girl child is the hardest profession to take in life but many girls are enforced due to hard circumstances. Mary , a teenage girl of fifteen lived in a remote area of Zimbabwe. She went to school and stopped when she was only ten years old and went to work at a nearby tobacco plantation. She worked for twelve hours a day. A few months later after she celebrated her fifteenth birthday an awful thing happened. Her father passed away in a car accident.
A few months after her father passed away, her mother was married to a man called Moyo. Moyo was brown in complexion, huge and his face was fearce. His father let her work for long hours and beat her up for no reason and he was always rude to Mary. One day when Marys' mother went to Harare to see her sister who was sick, and she left Mary with her step-father. When evening came Mary went to bed as usual. An hour after Mary had gone to bed Mr Moyo sneaked into Mary's room. He was holding a knife in his hand.
He lit the candle and he kicked a stool by mistake. Suddenly Mary heard the noise and wake up. She saw her stepfather holding a very big knife. His stepfather told her not to say any word or he will cut her throat Without wasting any time Moyo told Mary to take off her clothes . As Mary was taking off her clothes many questions pilled in his head . How could his father rape her , The man he respected like his real father . How could he do such a thing when he promised her mother that he will take great care of her. Is this what he meant by taking great care of her ? These were some of the questions that Mary was asking herself.
After he raped her he beat her. The next morning Moyo told Mary that if she tell anyone about what happened he will kill her. Moyo raped Mary everyday until one morning when Mary's mother came back from Harare. When Mary saw the face of her mother, she started to cry and she suddenly collapsed. She was taken to Hospital and the doctors found out that she was pregnant. When her mother heard the news the question which blew into her mind was , 'Who is responsible ?'The doctors said that she was lucky because she would have died. She had bruises all over her body.
Mary was asked what had happened but she refused to tell the truth because she was afraid that his stepfather would kill her. Finally , she told the nurses and the police what happened when her mother was away. When the police, nurses and her mother returned to the remote area of Chivi , they realised that Moyo had packed his things and went away. Moyo was tracked down by the police. He was sentenced for eighteen years in jail. There after Mary lived happily with her mother. But sometimes its to fend for her baby alone.
We hope you saw the problems that are faced by some other girls. Many girls are being abused both physically and sexually.
By
Gladys Chidume and Precious Sarutawa
Girls have a lot of problems in this world. In other families girls do not go to school because they are responsible for doing different types of work in those families. Girls are said that they will be married soon. At school boys are said to be the leaders because they think that they can do well in all subjects They don't know that if by chance we can do much better than them.
If girls passed their education they will be supposed to find jobs. The managers ask them out before they give them jobs. If they refuse they will go back home without being employed. The managers give jobs to those who agrees to go out with them. Where do they want us to get these jobs? We also like to be treated like boys and we can do those jobs which they said that they are responsible for them.
Girls are responsible for doing jobs like washing , cooking and gardening. This work will take the time which we must use for reading. Boys do well at school because by the time when boys are reading girls will be doing some work .After doing these jobs we will be so tired and need time to rest so that we can get up early the following morning and do some work before we go to school. How can we learn and understand what the teacher is saying maybe we will be busy thinking of what we have to do after school or some of these problems we had mentioned above.
Girls are always raped by man. This is the main problem faced by girls . They will be given diseases and when they grow up they want to be married and they will be shy to talk to guys they wish to be married with. Sugar daddies are also helping in destroying our future because of what they do. Some girls get into those situations because of beautiful things they admire from those sugar daddies of the same age our fathers and grand fathers , they don't know that they are destroying our lives.
At school they don't participate because they will be thinking of those problems they came across everyday. Some girls stays with parents who treat them badly. They will be also thinking of what their elders did to them like selling things near bottle stores at night where there is a lot of men. Those man can do whatever they want to such girls and pay them nothing. Some girls are being raped and beaten everyday by their stepfathers and other relatives. We can solve these problems by introducing female managers in large and small companies. All parents who abuse children should be punished.
By
Joyce Chafa and Margret Ndhlara