A new report has claimed that poor sex workers in Zimbabwe inject themselves with blood to get high.
The new trend known as flashblood or bluetoothing, requires a syringe full of blood being passed from someone who has just injected heroin to someone else who wants the drugged blood instead of heroin.
According to the report, sex workers in Murambinda are deliberately injecting themselves with addicts’ blood in a desperate effort to share the intoxication. The sex workers inject themselves with the intoxicated blood so that they can get high and confident enough to approach potential clients as well as to cater for their ever-changing sexual demands which of late have included anal sex and blow jobs.
Tafadzwa Dinga, a Microplanner under the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) funded Microplanning program being implemented by the National Aids Council (NAC) confirmed the development.
Dinga said;
Young sex workers are taking drugs. When we ask them they usually don’t divulge that they use drugs but the evidence will be there. Some of the common drugs being taken by these youngsters include Gukka Makafela, Bronclear (Ngomwa) and Marijuana. We are also hearing that young sex workers are now injecting each other’s blood to get high. They take blood from an intoxicated peer and deliberately inject into themselves, we have been hearing of such cases of late and we are still investigating.
Another microplanner in Murambinda, Angela Matizanadzo said it was not unusual that sex workers in the district were drug users given the capricious sexual demands of their clients.
Angela said:
We are having a problem especially amongst our young sex workers. Some of them are new and can’t say no to certain demands. Of late, clients have been demanding anal sex and blow jobs. For experienced sex workers, they know that it’s risky to have anal sex and oral sex but our young girls are at a disadvantage.
