Revealed: Grandmothers Have Now Turned Into S*x Workers to Survive...

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While her peers are busy sharing fables with their grandchildren, nurturing them to be better people in society, *Lucy Mutasa (Not her real name), 52, will be selling s*x for mealie-meal, salt, firewood and a bunch of vegetables at the legendary Booster area in Epworth.

Mutasa is one of many old s*x workers in Harare's poor neighbourhood who compete with teenagers for men as they sell their bodies for as little as 50 cents to earn a living.

In this business, she is competing with her 28-year-old daughter, Maidei, and at times with girls as young as 13.

"Most of my clients are young boys who normally want to sample the Magogos [old women]. We give them the best such that they continue to come back with their money," said Mutasa during a tour of the Booster area sponsored by the National Aids Council (NAC).

Her old face was heavily powdered, with dark eyebrows, but the artificial look could not hide her age.

Even the way she walks tells that she has seen many battles and has slept with many men for a living.

"I know how to handle a client better than these young girls. Even my bed is smart and I know how to wash myself, clean my private parts to the satisfaction of my clients, hence I have survived in this game," Mutasa said.

Her body looks wasted but the make-up on her face tells a different story -- a granny refusing to retire from the world's oldest profession.

"If I retire, who will take care of me? My daughter is also in it trying to keep herself going. I have been in this trade for over 30 years," she said.

"I started it after my husband, now late, cheated on me long back and we divorced.

"I had no option but to look for something that could sustain me.

"Indeed, this thing [private part] is gold, it's a gold mine and I have sustained my family," Mutasa told the journalists who were visiting sex workers with NAC officials.

However, Mutasa and other sex workers in Epworth are suffocating under the liquidity crunch that has dogged the economy since 2015.

At times they go without a cent or are forced to drop their charges to as low as $0.30 so that they can at least buy something to eat.

"Things are hard these days. We are struggling although we are accepting payments through EcoCash. It's cold out there," she lamented.

"At times we go for days without getting anything. We have men who are willing to pay as little as 30c for short time, just imagine."

At the time of the visit, Mutasa was nursing an injury. She claimed a client who wanted a price reduction burnt her thighs.

"Look at my thighs, they were burnt by some men who wanted me to reduce the price to 30 cents and I refused," she said.

"While I was negotiating, one of them took a burning log and shoved it between my legs. I am thankful to God, the log did not reach my private parts. It is very bad."

Mutasa said these days, due to the injury, it was her daughter who was active on the market to sustain the family. They share a single room, which is divided by a curtain to give a semblance of privacy to their various clients.

"She will be with her client on the other side and I will also be entertaining mine on the other side," she said.

"We are just trying to make ends meet, otherwise morally it's bad, but we have no option," she said, much to the amusement of the journalists before her colleagues broke into song and dance singing mwana wehure akangofanana namai wacho kana pachikapa [a prostitute's child is just like the mother when it comes to sexual performance].

But does she love the job? "Not because it's nice, but because I have to take care of the family."

Mutasa believes older sex workers are in a better position to negotiate for safe sex and prevent the spread of HIV and Aids.

"We have realised that most of these teenage sex workers are unable to negotiate for safe sex and in the end they expose themselves to HIV and Aids," she said.

With the help of Springs of Life Zimbabwe and NAC, the sex workers at B