THE teenage girls form a circle on the stage as they gyrate to music emanating from large loudspeakers fixed on all corners of the packed nightclub in Harare’s central business district.
Byron Mutingwende
Pot-bellied men circle around the girls like swarms of bees, gulping their beer.
The scantily-dressed teenagers – wearing pairs of shorts and bras – are touching the ground with their hands and behinds in the air as they swerve from side to side in sync with Emmanuel Manyeruke aka Guspy Warrior’s hit song, Seunononga.
This is a daily routine for the young girls who move from one nightspot to the next doing some raunchy dances in exchange for a few dollars.
“The dances are tiresome. We have to sweat on the stage and pretend to be drunk and do the dances that we rehearse on over and over again before nightfall. That is how we put food on the table for our siblings because most of us are orphans from child-headed families,” explains Sibongile, a dancer, her eyes glimmering with tears.
She leads a dance outfit called The Raw Nerve Dance Group, made up of teenagers some of them as young as 13, who started off as sex workers. “We just met in the pubs as we were courting potential clients for sex. Some are from Harare, Shurugwi, Gokwe and others come from as far as Chipinge. Our purpose is one – we need to make money through selling our bodies and raunchy dances for survival,” Sibongile said.
It is almost midnight and the girls are visibly tired. They have sweated profusely and are preparing to take a shower at the nightclub. They say they need to freshen up and attract male clients.
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Michelle – Sibongile’s friend says their clients are from all age groups, but they prefer older men “who have worked for long and pay much better compared to their younger counterparts”.
Education way out of modern-day slavery
SOCIAL commentator Douglas Chivandire says the practice by owners of the bars and nightspots to exploit young girls and women for economic gain is tantamount to modern-day slavery.
He called on authorities like Zimbabwe Republic Police to arrest such crude businesspeople. He said authorities needed to save the innocent girls by flushing them out from the nightspots.
“Government must at best try to rehabilitate such youngsters. The best way will be to counsel them and then offer vocational training on knitting, sewing or even offering them loans to start up small projects,” Chivandire said.
The teenagers are very young and supposed to be in school, but all of them insisted that economic hardships had forced them to drop out. They added that they were vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases like gonorrhea and syphilis as well as the HIV virus that causes Aids.
“It is unfortunate that most of our friends died before they reached their 20th birthday due to complications arising mainly from HIV infections. If we had money, we would have stayed in school. However, due to poverty we are forced in such lifestyles which can still come back to kill us,” said Michelle, another dancer.
Primary and Secondary Education minister Lazarus Dokora has appealed for more funding to be channelled towards the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM). The programme assists primary and secondary level students, mostly vulnerable and orphaned, through paying school fees and levies.
The programme also caters for examination fees for six Ordinary Level subjects and all three subjects at Advanced Level. In some instances, schools that receive the BEAM funds build or repair classroom and buy office furniture.
The Education Transition Fund spearheaded by Unicef sought to supply each schoolchild with textbooks.In 2011, about 13 million textbooks were delivered to Zimbabwe’s primary schools.
Analysts say poverty and lack of access to sexual and reproductive health and rights will jeopardise students’ chances to pursue education further. A survey on sexual and reproductive health on girls and young women and boys revealed startling statistics calling for action on the part of the government and other stakeholders.
The Zimbabwe Demographic Health Survey (ZDHS, 2010-2011) says 15% of young women who had sexual intercourse in the year preceding the survey, had sex with a man 10 or more years older.
Similarly, young men aged 15-19 who reported that they had a sexual partner in the past 12 months were asked the age of the partner. Less than 1% reported having a partner 10 or more years older. As a result, young women are more vulnerable and at risk of intergenerational relationships as opposed to young men.
Southern Africa Aids Information Dissemination Services (SAfAIDS) runs a television programme in which experts and youths share information with audiences on how to tackle issues on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR).
Numerous topics related to SRHR have been discussed under the Young4Real programme. These have included sexual abuse, teenage pregnancies, intergenerational relationships, peer pressure, sexuality and disability, social networking, sexual violence, albinism and sexuality, sanitary wear, multiple concurrent partnerships, early sexual debut and date rape, among others.
“The topics covered highlighted factors that make youth unable to access services and the challenges that they face as young people. Stemming from the topics covered in 2011 and 2012, SAfAIDS started the Young People’s Information and Services Advocacy (YPISA) team model and the Madhara Kwete Campaign,” said Renias Mundingi, SAfAIDS SRHR programme officer. Mundingi said YPISA teams are designed to provide information and services to young people at community level.
Each team is expected to play many roles including advocacy, awareness raising, peer to peer counseling, referrals and formation of listening clubs as ways of disseminating SRHR information among peers.
The law must be tightened to protect vulnerable women
WOMEN activists argued that having sexual intercourse with teenagers in pubs and nightclubs was tantamount to rape. Virginia Muwanigwa, chairperson of the Women’s Coalition, urged the government to do everything in its power to meet the socio-economic needs of the people of Zimbabwe, especially women and girls as poverty predisposes them to sexual exploitation and rape.
Muwanigwa was concerned about women and girls’ low socio-economic status that exacerbates their vulnerability to all forms of abuse, including sexual exploitation. She further called for equality and equity among men and women with regard to access to education, health and protection from abuse.
According to the Constitution of Zimbabwe, a child below 18 does not have the capacity to consent to sexual intercourse.
“However, there has not been a single case whereby men who take young girls and women from bars and nightclubs and have sexual intercourse with them have been arrested. In this regard, as Women’s Coalition, we urge the judiciary to consider stiff custodial sentences on anyone who has sexual intercourse with a minor in light of the unprecedented cases of rape targeted at women and children,” Muwanigwa charged.
Maria Chiwera from Women’s Action Group said the judiciary should outline a clear schedule of sentences for rape and other sexual abuse. This could be achieved by setting a minimum and maximum sentence for sexual offenders depending on the gravity of the crimes committed, she said.
Chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Jessie Majome proposed a motion for government to have stiffer sentences on offenders for rape and other forms of gender violence.
She called on Parliament to amend the Criminal (Codification and Reform) Act, Magistrates Court, Victim Friendly Court, Criminal Procedure and Evidence, Termination of Pregnancy, Marriage and Customary Marriage Acts.
“This will give effect to the necessary changes that will set stiffer sentences for offenders, prevent gender-based violence and provide support for survivors,” Majome said.“We should not forget that there is need to equip police stations with rape kits, and ensure scientific forensic investigation of rape which includes DNA testing.All this is part of the action plan that I am pushing for that will ensure the systematic implementation of the National Gender-Based Strategy.”
Dancers, sex workers cash cow for nightspots
IN Rimuka township, Kadoma, scores of young girls can be seen milling around bars and nightclubs by nightfall. Most of them wear heavy makeup and strong deodorants. A group of five teenage girls makes a single file into a nightclub. Unlike men, they are not charged entry fees by the bouncer at the entrance.
“These are our cash cows, chief. If the bar is not visited by these girls, business will be very low,” explained the doorman. “Men buy more beer to impress and court sexual favours from these girls. Without them we could have closed this bar a long time ago. These girls are also experts in pole dancing and strip teasing. They are part of business and patrons love their dances.”
Allowing women, particularly sex workers, to enter night spots for free is a business model that many clubs use to lure men seeking the favours for the clubs.
The patrons will be forced to dig deeper into their pockets as they buy alcohol for the women and consequently upscaling profits for the night clubs and bars that have become a haunt for the sex workers and dancers seeking a living.
