Saturday Dialogue with Ropafadzo Mapimhidze
Why are these women given extra attention ahead of drunkards and many other devious people in our communities?
It takes more to make them leave this trade than just pledging to assist them with cash and starting a business for them.
Change has to come from deep down their hearts before accessing help from either the church or even family.
Taking these people as victims of poverty is not good because they will always go back to that trade if they do not get what you may have promised them.
For most of these people it is a choice they deliberately made because they are either lazy to work or perhaps they are truly survivors of life’s difficult circumstances.
The thing is that churches should never view these people as victims because they all know that what they are doing is anti-social.
Many years ago, the late First Lady Sally Mugabe rescued some commercial sex workers in Marondera, and built houses for them in order for them to start a new life. But shortly afterwards, these women were back on the streets, selling their bodies in exchange for cash.
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These hookers were used to having money, no matter how little, from the day-to-day takings from their profession.
They had apparently started demanding for more and more things which was very unfortunate.
These women felt as though the late First Lady owed them something for making them leave the streets and this is exactly what churches are now being confronted with.
Why don’t churches assist people with very serious matters like those afflicting single parent-headed families or orphans?
There are so many widows out there needing financial assistance and yet some churches want to focus on these devious people who in most cases are prostitutes because they enjoy the work.
Churches should assist ex-prostitutes that have come for deliverance willingly, without being pressurised.
Forcing such people to toe the line is no doubt a big mistake.
But those that decide to quit prostitution voluntarily, can turn out to become the most industrious and hard working people earning an honest lifestyle.
I know of a former commercial sex worker who decided to quit and change her lifestyle after watching a television programme that called for repentance. She took a giant step and went to a local church and spoke with a pastor about her wanting to leave prostitution.
The pastor welcomed her and she joined his congregation.
One day the former sex worker decided to give her testimony at a Sunday service, detailing how she would go to Zambia, Botswana and South Africa to sell her body. The congregation was quiet as she narrated her path to a new life as a Christian.
But as the year progressed, some people of the church started frustrating her because they felt they could not work with a “whore”.
But that did not deter the former sex worker for she had made up her mind that she was aiming to turn her life around to becoming a new person.
However, the heat became too hot for her and decided to quit the church. She started worshipping at home as she watched gospel television programmes on pay channels.
It was the women congregants that spoke against her so much that the pastor’s wife returned a gift she had bought her as a Christmas present.
The pastor’s wife told her that she had bought the gift using dirty money from prostitution and hence God had told her to return the parcel.
But the woman had long left her trade as a prostitute.
The ex-commercial worker took her gift away and gave it to a neighbour.
A few months later she started attending church services in Harare CBD where she also confessed that she had left her work as a prostitute a long time ago and that churches were failing to accept her.
This particular church embraced her, paid her rentals and bought food for six months. She was also given $1 000 to start buying and selling items.
Today this woman is a senior church member, happily married to one of the deacons.
This is a success story of someone who had realised that walking the streets in the middle of the night selling sex was anti-social behaviour.
This woman was willing to change, and indeed change came from the deep inside of her.
But when church leaders start calling names of prostitutes, and forcing them to repent, the result is disastrous.
Prostitutes can be very rude and may actually claim things about a church leader that may be false.
This is because they have no reputation to protect.
Church leaders have to be very careful when treading on these issues because they may just backfire.
What if these women decide to spread word that the church leader is actually one of their sex clients?
Then what will happen to the congregation?
Why can’t everyone else in the church receive equally the same attention as these women?
And what would be the reaction of the church leaders’ spouse?
Isn’t it strange that March is a month that recognises prostitution and March 3 is actually International Sex Workers’ Rights Day and June 2 is also International Whores’ Day?
Prostitution is known as the oldest profession which will live with mankind for eternity.
This fact requires churches to tread carefully on these matters.
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