In an unusual twist of street justice, two sex workers in Verulam, KwaZulu-Natal, took bold action after being short-changed by a client — by repossessing his electric scooter.
The drama unfolded on Todd Street in the Verulam CBD, where officers from Reaction Unit South Africa (RUSA) responded to a tip-off from a concerned resident. The caller reported seeing two women, known in the area as drug users, pushing a Dimentro electric motorcycle near the train station — a strange sight that raised suspicion.
When officers arrived and questioned the pair, the women freely admitted to being sex workers. According to their story, a male client had agreed to pay each of them R100 for their services the night before. After making use of all three women, the man only had R100 — enough to pay just one of them. He promised to return with the rest.
He never did.
Frustrated and unpaid, the two women decided to hold on to what they could — the client’s motorcycle keys — as a form of collateral. After waiting several hours in vain, they pushed the scooter all the way from Wick Street to the Verulam Train Station in hopes of selling it to recoup their unpaid wages.
RUSA officers tracked the scooter’s registration and discovered it belonged to a business, not the client himself. A company representative was called to the scene and promptly recovered the vehicle. No criminal charges were laid at the time, and the situation was resolved without further incident.
While bizarre, the incident underscores the desperation and blurred legal boundaries many sex workers face in South Africa — a country still grappling with how to fairly and safely regulate the sex trade. In this case, justice was a DIY effort — with a scooter as collateral and a long walk to nowhere.
