WRITTEN by award-winning cartoonist Tony Namate In Transit is a comic story about three orphans living in a shanty town called Shackville, situated just outside a major city.
Ropafadzo Mapimhidze
Shackville is more popularly known as Toxi City by outsiders, a settlement of makeshift shacks located next to a toxic garbage dump site.
Sani Bonani (19) is the eldest of the three orphans and is a friend of Malaika (18) a local prostitute who lives in her own shack. Malaika was raped as a young girl by her uncle, resulting in her being chased away by her aunt.
She briefly worked for an elderly woman, but left because of non-payment of wages.
Malaika soon discovered that she could make money through prostitution with older men.
But she gets into trouble with Shackville women who are not happy about prostitution.
The 25-page story book also tackles the tragedy of human trafficking. “Human trafficking is the sale of human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation and prostitution; or for work for little or no pay on farms, kitchens and factories.” said Namate in an interview.
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Namate is an award-winning cartoonist who has drawn political cartoons for local and international newspapers in a career spanning 26 years.
Some of Namate’s awards include: Runner-up in the 2000 UN Ranan Lurie Political Cartoon Award, the 2003 Courage in Editorial Cartooning award (presented to him in Lexington, Kentucky, during the annual meeting of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists).
In 2009 he represented Cartoonists Rights Network at the Forum for Freedom of Expression summit in Oslo, Norway.
His work has been covered by BBCTV, Swedish TV, SABCTV, Radio Netherlands, New York Times, Daily Telegraph, and Studio 7.
He has also published three political cartoon books: State of The Nation (1997), Writing on the Wall (1998), and The Emperor’s New Clods (2010).
