A teacher at one Zimbabwe school told the BBC that hundreds of girls at her school are prostituting. “It could be books, it could be biscuits, chips, some even just to be given a hug,” she said. One female student, who is orphaned, told the news service that many she knows have turned to prostituting. “I don’t want to do that but life is so difficult, so very difficult,” she said. “Both my parents are dead and I rarely see my two sisters. Recently I stood by the river and I thought about throwing myself in but I didn’t. I don’t know why.” Child traffickers could be looking to bring young girls from the nation to neighboring South Africa during 2010’s World Cup finals to works as prostitutes, the BBC reports.

For the first time since 1992, South Africa, the African continent’s largest economy, has slipped into a recession. The country’s gross domestic product fell 6.4 percent, its largest fall since 184.  While the nation has seen a boost in construction due to next year’s World Cup ceremonies, the manufacturing and mining industries (which make up sizeable chunks of the African nation’s economy as a whole) have slowed down, the BBC reports. “It’s far worse than we expected,” an economist told the news service. “It confirms the recession in the economy and certainly increases concerns about overall growth for 2009, given such a bad start for the year.” In response, the Reserve Bank of South Africa will cut interest rates by one percent.