WITH the tobacco-selling season underway, many farmers are falling prey to vice in Harare’s high density suburbs as they lose all their earnings to hookers.
Incidents of male farmers being left stark na_ked in the heavy industrial sites have become common, after they engage the services of commercial se_x workers. Recently, a Hurungwe man was left stranded and had to be rescued by good samaritans after he was left penniless.
The man, whose identity was concealed, was later given an Ankara wrap and jacket by his wife whom he had left at the auction floors. An employee at one of the auction floors, David Kamupira, said the farmers are easy targets for thieves because they move in groups.
Kamupira, a resident of Mbare, said farmers are also very stubborn because they are told of the dangers of moving around with large amounts of cash but insist on doing exactly that.
He said for someone who grew up in the ghetto, you can spot bharanzi (soft targets) from a distance simply by the way they walk and talk.
“Masasi etonaz akatosiyana neekurunyaz. Plus nyaya yavo yekufamba vakatakura imba yese kunge vari kutama. Mabhebhi anobva atoona kuti uyo anodyika easy, votomubhaiza just like that (city lingo is different from that of the rural areas. They also move around with all their belongings prompting city girls to pounce on them),” Kamupira said.
Another employee from the auction floors, Epiphania Gwasira, said farmers are waylaid with the promises of a good time. She said because many of them have never had a girlfriend from the city, the idea of being in the company of a modern woman is enticing.
Gwasira cited one farmer who was left destitute in Glen Norah after being robbed of all his belongings. She said the woman took him to a house in the high density suburb but left the room while he was sleeping only for him to wake up to find just a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.
The woman wiped the man out. She took his clothes, the stuff he had bought and his pay-out from selling tobacco. For the farmers just to be seen with a well-dressed and groomed woman from the city is enough for them (farmers) to be dictated. However, it comes at a price, which is usually everything that they worked for,” she said.
Gwasira said this man had to do menial jobs for a week in order to earn bus fare back to his rural home. A well-known hooker in Mbare who goes by the name Hanna said the farmers are easy prey if you promise to sleep with them.
Hanna told the Weekend Post that all she has to do is lure him to her love nest, offer him alcohol and her pimp does the rest.
“Handingamborare naye achinhuhwa hutsi hwake hwekumusha. Changu kuenda naye paden ndomupaka nebeer orara. Paanomuka vakomana vanenge vatopedza naye ini ndinenge ndatobaya kare. Anenge asisatozive face yangu (I cannot sleep with them because of their body odours. All I have to do is buy him lots of beer until he passes out. The “guys” do all the other work and by morning he won’t even remember my face),” Hanna said.
A police officer stationed at Southerton Police Station said though they are aware that such incidents happen, the victims do not report because they are ashamed.
The policewoman said she knew of a man who came to the police station crying as he had been robbed in Mbare by an unknown woman.
“These men come to Harare alone and often do not have any relatives in the city. Because they are gullible to feminine wiles, they are robbed of everything they have, including their clothes. It is sad but that is the reality of the tobacco season,” she said.