BROKEN FOUNDATIONS

THE church has awakened to its role of actively finding solutions that will save the girl child from the world’s oldest profession with men from different Christian denominations descending on Harare’s streets for midnight street prayers to contend with the spirit of prostitution.

The men congregated for the street walk last week and conducted the prayers in various parts of the capital.

This came hard on the heels of International Women’s Day which is celebrated annually on March 8.

The church’s role has been clearly defined by community and churches pursue the biblical morality of keeping sex within the confines of marriage, thereby making sex work immoral.

However, a large number of young girls have taken to the streets. This has jerked some churches to re-assess their role in discouraging the practice.

Co-odinator of the street walk, Drene Bismark, who is the chief operations officer at New Life Covenant Church highlighted that the nation needs to address the issue of young women who are operating as commercial sex workers.

“The economic environment in Zimbabwe is extremely challenging. For many people, it is a live or die struggle, and in times of desperation, human beings regress into survival mode.

“More and more individuals are taking to begging in the streets to earn any form of remuneration. But when young women take to the streets to be commercial sex workers at this rate, people need  to take a pause and address their own sense of conscience as to what the implications could be,” Bismark said.

“In an article titled ‘I slept with 4,5 men to earn $9” on CNN.com, the story of a woman being sexually exploited is horrendous. As more and more young girls and women are forced into the streets to sell themselves, their sense of self worth is diminished.

The future for these women is extremely challenging.

“As the church, the concern isn’t just the spiritual concern of promiscuity being so readily available. More than that, the church is to be the refuge for an individual’s soul. The church is concerned for the individual and their future, not to condemn them. We are worried about our future, and these women who are being forced out onto the streets are part of that future,” he said.

While gender issues have been seen as women’s issues, the role of men can never be over-emphasised.

Bismark said men have a critical role in safeguarding the future of women.

“Men can take responsibility in several ways. First in the home as good husbands and good fathers that won’t abandon their families, forcing the women in the home to be on the streets.

“Also in the home, loving and teaching their families the truth about their worth, that they are worth so much and that no person can put a value on their body.

“Second, in the community, as ambassadors creating jobs and resource outlets to help women earn a living in a dignified manner.

“And third; men, Christian or not, can make a difference by choosing not to be governed by ravenous carnality and say “NO”. If more and more men are not willing to exploit these women and pay for sex, in pure terms, the supply will diminish as a result,” he highlighted.

According to National Aids Council Monitoring and Evaluation director, Mr Amos Mpofu, sex work begins at the age of 13 up to 24 years. He said women in this age group are the most vulnerable.

“We have to look at why women are becoming vulnerable to such issues. There is need to improve their status so that they can empower themselves.

“Young sex workers are vulnerable to infections because of their lack of negotiating skills. Also, their biological make-up isn’t mature yet and so this puts their health at risk,” Mr Mpofu explained.

“We do not have a co-ordinated study but we have a programme titled “Sister to Sister” which is looking at ways of helping these young girls.

“This teaches them to have self esteem and to say no to certain situations. It’s a long process but we need to economically empower these girls.

“We need to put them in groups, encourage them get into projects and ensure that they finish their studies because those who finish are better empowered.

“As NAC, we will soon roll out a program that is sponsored by USAID. lt is titled “Dreams for young girls” and will help keep them in school. The Government is also working through the Ministry of Gender (Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development) to educate them,” Mr Mpofu said.

Speaking to The Sunday Mail Religion, a commercial sex worker who uses Cynthia as a pseudo name and has been in commercial sex work for seven years since she was 19, said she is worried for the young girls who are roaming the streets.

“I really feel pity for the younger girls because unlike us, we used to have the police chasing after us and it kind of protected us. But now with that court ruling, the girls have all the freedom and it opens them up room for so much abuse.

Last May, the Constitutional Court outlawed the arrest of sex workers found loitering the streets for the purposes of prostitution saying as long as there were no men who could confirm that they had been approached by the women for sex, the arrests were unconstitutional.

“I got lured into this business when I went clubbing. A man offered me a million Zimbabwe dollars for sex. So it’s now difficult for me to quit. However, no one wants to be associated with such a bad trade,” said Cynthia.

She said she passed five subjects at Ordinary Level.

Patience, a 23-year-old commercial sex worker who came from Manicaland Province last year said she came to Harare hoping to find work but turned to sex work out of desperation.

“After completing school, I was just idle with my four ‘O’ Levels. I came to Harare with a desire to have an earnest living, thinking Harare would proffer job opportunities for me. But I soon realised that many girls were idle just like me and there was nothing else to do,” she said.

“At one time, I was raped and robbed of all the money I had worked for that night.

“At times, men don’t want to use protection so I had to learn to negotiate for what I want,” she said.

The Sunday Mail Religion was informed that the streets are “flooded” and therefore some of the sex workers are now offering their services for as low as $3 per sex session.

UN Women Country representative, Delphine Serumaga said the perception that the girls get on to the streets voluntarily is misplaced.

“I have talked about the informal economy before. The reason why there is an informal economy is because the structures of the formal economy cannot absorb everyone.

“Unemployment rates are high, access to services are high, to access health services and education you need money and eventually, people figure out that they need to do something to earn that money.”

She added that some men are capitalising on the situation.

“This is an opportunistic business where you find men taking advantage of the situation. When we talk about sex work, everyone assumes it’s always the street walker. There is also transactional sex. In-order for me to get X, I have to do Y to get a job.

“So that also happens and that is also part of sex work. But people need to understand that it’s not necessarily something that somebody wants to do. It comes from desperate economic situations.

“lt can also come from a situation where a woman is pushed into it by someone exploiting them. This is where the opportunistic perpetrators maintain the sex workers in a dependency mode.

“So sex work is not all about someone who is standing in the street, it is also about someone who is economically desperate and so we have to address the issue of economic desperation.

“We have to offer economical and educational opportunities to the women and girls. These can be training opportunities, mentorship and life skills development.

“Opportunities do not always come through University education. Not everyone wants to go that way. Let’s consider other engagements that can keep them informed, busy, learning and empowered at the same time,” she advised.

While dealing with commercial sex work spiritually is of great importance, the church now needs to step up its efforts in addressing the issue through empowering the girl child.

Bismark said the church needs to engage its internal communities to provide rehabilitation and empowerment solutions of employment and revenue generating alternatives.

“The church must offer a refuge for these women. Some of them now have self-esteem issues, they feel they are only worthy of that life, they need counselling and encouragement. They need a voice to speak out for them, not against them,” Bismark said.

The Centre for Sexual health HIV and Aids Research established that from 2009 to 2013, there were 12 383 sex workers between the ages of 12 and 60 in Zimbabwe.

 

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