By MICHELO HIMAAMBO –
CAROL Hassan (real name withheld) was dumped by her mother at her father’s home when she was six months old.
Carol grew up and lived with her father in a one room house in Kabwata Estates.
The room was demarcated on the middle to create a ‘living room’ and ‘bedroom’ using a curtain.
Carol claims her father was a drunkard to a level of passing out many times thus not knowing what would happen to her daughter.
“But please bear with me, I do not want people to know my identity…I was born in 1996 on the Copperbelt, my mother left me with my father when I was six months old,” she said.
Carol came to learn about this through her father that her mother, whose whereabouts are not known, was 16 years old when she gave birth to her.
Initially her father tried to provide for her until in grade six when things started to change.
Her father’s drinking habits were bad to a level of not knowing when his friends he took home sexually abused her daughter.
“He just had this drinking problem and he would bring drinking partners home from the bar and after he got intoxicated and passed out, these men would do things to me,” she said.
Carol claims her father’s friends abused her even when he was not home.
At some point her father also started having sex with Carol but she never bothered to report him or tell anyone about it.
Her father would have sex with different women while she watched.
When Carol asked why the father brought and slept with different women, he replied that he wanted to choose a mother for her.
“I want to choose a mother for you so that she can take care of you,” he would respond.
Carol said she watched beautiful women with glamorous hair and sparkly dresses sleeping with her father.
She claims her father had nothing to offer the women that he had sex with but they liked him because he was light skinned.
“I think there is a problem with some Zambian women they like men with a light skin they call the cross breed ‘coloureds’,” Carol said.
She tried to live with her father’s relatives but no one was willing to accommodate her.
Carol dropped out school in 2010 when she was in grade seven and started to fend for herself through prostitution because her father was not responsible.
But it was hard when she started prostitution to endure sleeping with more than five men in a night.
Carols says it was painful because she was young but managed to endure both penetrative and oral sex.
She actually confessed that her father encouraged her to patronise a named drinking places in Kabwata.
According to her, one day she was lonely at home so she decided to go to a night spot in the area where she met a Martha who had lined up with other women by the roadside.
When Carol asked what Martha and the other women were doing on the roadside at night, Martha replied; “We are here to make money, this queue you see, the one in front goes first when a customer come. But if you are so unlucky, customers will choose the person they want and you will be left out.”
After she was briefed about what went on, Carol saw an ‘opportunity’ to make more money.
Carol would charge K50 per ‘round’.
Her father was “happy” each time she returned home in the morning with money.
However, one ugly thing occured during her outing when some men approached and attacked her.
“First they took me to a cornfield out in the middle of nowhere and raped me then they left me there stranded,” she said.
Until today, she has no idea why she was attacked.
“They brought their anger or mental illness or whatever it was and they decided to wreak havoc on me, knowing I couldn’t go to the police,” she said.
Carol recalls that some men who took her to get a ‘service’ were violent and they could get anything they wanted because they were paying for their actions.
Another nasty incident she experienced was when she was taken to some lodge at night and after doing the act she was dumped at Leopards Hill cemetery without her client paying the dues.
In 2013, when Carol noticed she was pregnant, she had no idea of who could have impregnated her because of sleeping with different men in a day without using a condom.
She was not afraid of contracting the HIV/AIDS virus because according to her its the customers’ choice.
Carol tried to abort her pregnancy but did not succeed.
“At that point I realised that God really wanted me to have this child. I decided to keep the pregnancy,” she said.
But when Carol’s father discovered she was pregnant, he kicked her out of the house.
She was left to depend on the clients who would hook her and give her room to sleep in a hotel or lodge they booked.
Carol gave birth but her child was born with some complications.
She has however relocated to Kaoma.
Carol became addicted to sex where she started hallucinating doing the act when she is alone in the house.
Each time she was not hooked and goes back home her father would also demand for sex.
But when she got fed up with her father’s abusive behaviour, Carol decided to sleep with anyone for almost nothing to avoid going home and get abused by her father.
“When there are no potential clients to give good money, I would still agree to go and sleep with a man for even  K10 just to avoid going home because my father would initiate sex and I did not like it anymore,” she said as tears rolls down her cheeks.
Carol regrets her actions because prostitution has left a mark in her life thus she discourages anyone who want to venture into the oldest profession.
She says prostitution is not the best option women should take because she is lucky to have survived when others have been killed or infected with HIV.