He doesn t believe the 900 black people living on his Northern Province farm in Tshipise a stone s throw from the Beit Bridge border post with Zimbabwe have the right to speak to outsiders without his permission. He had never heard of the European Union before this week. And he doesn t believe his workers have the right to join a union to press for increases to their R335 monthly wage. I m not answering any of your questions. He was also criticised this week by the Human Rights Commission for the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment meted out with his knowledge to a former worker.
People come from as far away as Harare to get jobs at the border.
The farmer brings you across in his truck the first time, but after that you have to pay your own way back, she adds. Shengiwa lives in a filthy 4m2 cement shed with 19 other women who, like her, left their families behind in Zimbabwe to search for a better life in South Africa. She is embarrassed to open the tiny blackened pot on a tiny twig fire in front of her room. The pot is less than half-full with the mopane worms the workers collect for food. The last time I had meat was in Zimbabwe, adds Shengiwa.