A young girl barely 17, proudly walks towards a commuter omnibus driver whose car is parked near the bar entrance, she negotiates for a cigarette and have it lit.
MICHELLE CHIFAMBA, OWN CORRESPONDENT
Arrogantly she puffs out a cloud of smoke and the driver softly whispers “I will be back in the next hour.”
He drives into the night and she stays behind to continue with her hunt for other prospective customers.
As soon as the sun reaches the horizon, the girls are in a thick mist of zeal and anxiety, shying away from the bright lights and the loud music emanating from the nearby beer joints, they are strategically positioned in the dark.
With heavily white–washed faces full of cheap make–up, dressed in skinny denims, others in small revealing skirts and blouses, girls as young as 15 stand in the midst of the dark, eager to attract attention from the drunken men who frequent the spots, patiently, like vultures, they wait for a possible client to hook up in exchange for sex for money.
Child prostitution has become rife on the streets of Harare as young girls wrestle to make ends meet. Observers maintain that the country’s dire economic situation and the HIV and Aids pandemic that swept away generations have left children vulnerable forcing many women and girls to work as sex workers.
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), child prostitution is the worst form of child labour. Out of desperation, the young sex workers risk and endure the constant harassments from their clients in their plight to put a dollar in their purses.
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Born in an era in which the world grapples with the effects of HIV and Aids, children, especially girls, are exposed to a raft of dangers in life.
“Sometimes, men sleep with me and refuse to pay. If you are lucky those drunken men pay a quarter of the agreed amount for the whole night and sometimes they refuse to pay anything. If there was any alternative I would abandon it, but I have no option but to stick around since I have a family to feed,” said a sex worker in her early 20s while applying make-up on her face in a toilet at a Harare bar.
According to an NGO, that works with vulnerable children in slum communities, Vision HIV/Aids, orphaned children are left vulnerable and fast-tracked into adulthood, therefore, children in child-headed families resort to prostitution as they navigate their way in a cruel and uncertain world.
“Orphaned at a tender age many children are left to fend for themselves.
Poverty is a vicious cycle in which the girl child will be indebted to take care of her siblings assuming all parental roles in face of abject poverty ending up resorting to sex work to take care of the family,” said Vision HIV/Aids founder and director, Justice Mavu.
The National Aids Council (Nac), notes that there is need for the government, individuals and the corporate sector to put more effort to assist young people whose lives are trapped in a vicious cycle that leads to new HIV infections as they make efforts to make a living hence the increase in child prostitution across the country is worrying.
Unicef observes: “Most young people in Zimbabwe have grown up in an era of HIV and Aids for more than three decades the disease and its effects have been prevalent in their lives.”
“The increase in sexually transmitted infections recorded across the country calls for concern, especially in this age of HIV. Indulging in unprotected sex fuels the incidence of HIV in the country,” Nac notes.
In its quest to fight the oldest profession — prostitution, the government has for the past few years been rounding up hundreds of women and detaining them till they proved that they were not involved in the trade.
“Apart from lack of food, shelter and birth registration documents and psychological support, orphaned and vulnerable children face a daunting challenge with regards to education. Their quest to better themselves by attaining a decent education is shattered by lack of school fees,” he added.
A board member of the Girl Child Network Zimbabwe said child prostitution was a national problem that needed urgent attention.
“I would call it sexual abuse of the girl child. However, the abuse is on the increase meaning that laws protecting the rights of children must be crafted.”
Observers now maintain that children growing up in slum communities which are impoverished emulate their elders in such situations hence prostitution becomes inevitable.
