Zimbabweans turn to sex work amid economic crisis and Coronavirus

Women fetch water from a stream after Cyclone Idai in Chipinge, Zimbabwe, on March 25, 2019. [Reuters]

Dressed in a miniskirt and blouse, Esther Kamupunga stood in semi-darkness waiting for men looking for sex - the latest Zimbabwean to lose her job in a deepening economic crisis, worsened by the new coronavirus.

When the first COVID-19 case was detected in March, Zimbabwe rapidly went into lockdown, and the 24-year-old single mother and waitress was laid off in the eastern city of Mutare.