Young girls trade sex for empty beer bottles

DANCEHALL music sensation Boom Berto's hit song, Amai Munodonhedza Musika, blares from an old amplified hifi system. On the dance floor, young girls of school-going age wriggle seductively to attract male patrons in the nightclub in Wedza.

Thirteen year-old Kate, in a skimpy black dress, is whisked away by an elderly man. After a while, she returns with two empty beer bottles and carefully places them at the corner among other bottles.

With the country facing a biting cash crunch, which has hit rural areas the hardest, young sex workers are now asking for payment in empty beer bottles which they later trade for cash.

This is confirmed by Zimbabwe National Council for the Welfare of Children (ZNCWC) research titled Young Women in Commercial Sexual Exploitation Along Two Transport Corridors in Zimbabwe.

ZNCWC programmes manager, Maxim Murungweni, who was one of the researchers, confirmed the latest trend and said many young sex workers were finding the going tough and had resorted to accepting payment in kind.

"During discussions, the children involved in commercial sexual exploitation in Beitbridge and Ngundu noted that there is low business, as the clients do not have money. In some instances they are now being paid in kind using empty soft drink or beer bottles per encounter. They noted that they now keep empty crates in their houses and exchange these crates for money once they are full. They have no choice but to accept this mode of payment," he said.

According to the research, the majority (99%), of Young Women in Commercial Sexual Exploitation (YWCSE) reported that they were paid cash for providing their services, while the minority reported that they were being paid in kind with the items for payment including, used blankets, clothes and food.

The report also stated that a section of young girls are engaged in anal penetrative sex risking high chance of getting infected with the HIV. About 10,7% of the young sex workers do engage in oral sex with their male clients.

Meanwhile, new HIV infections in Zimbabwe fell by 3,1% during the first three quarters of last year, as patients embraced anti-retroviral drugs and adhered to prescriptions.

Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) data indicates that new HIV cases between and January and September last year declined to 205 711, from 212 330 during the prior comparative period in 2015.

However, according to the findings despite the ground gained through awareness campaigns women are contracting HIV at a faster pace than men.

The ZNCWC report also revealed that some young commercial sex workers are unable to negotiate for safe sex, with 28,4% of child sex workers admitting that their customers refused to use condoms during their last five sexual encounters.

"Reasons why a condom was never or sometimes used with a client demonstrate a strong proxy indicator to the compromised inexperience and poor negotiation skills for safer sex increasing the vulnerability of younger women in commercial sexual exploitation. 32,1% and around 28% indicated that condom use was compromised because customer pays more or refused to use respectively," the report read.

Plan International Zimbabwe communications officer, Angela Machonesa, said the best way to keep children off commercial sex work is by keeping them in school.

"If we ensure that there is a social basket that allows children whose parents cannot afford to send them to school, or vulnerable children, for example, the disabled or orphans to be in school, then we can end this rife on child prostitution," she said.

"The police force should also come hard on people who engage children for sex. It is now a syndicate of people doing that, for example those who offer booking rooms should not allow children in. The lodge owners should ask for IDs, it needs a multi-sectoral approach to end this scourge."

She said climate change phenomena like the recent El Nino and cyclones have unsettled families, leaving young girls vulnerable to social vices like sex work.

Plan International has helped in the establishment of low-cost boarding facilities in some parts of Midlands where young girls stay at school, so that they won't be preyed on while travelling to and from school. The girls go home during weekends and holidays.

Despite poverty as the main driving factor of child prostitution, Zimbabwe's 2015 Constitutional Court ruling that police could not arrest women for prostitution has also resulted in the influx of child sex workers in most towns.

Moreover, the demise of the bar age limit regulation is also fuelling the increase of young sex workers.

Most entertainment joints in the country now allow every person into the pub and worse still are selling alcohol and cigarettes to young people including girls.

Social commentator Admire Mare said: "I think the reason for not adhering to the No Under 18 age limit in pubs has something to do with poverty. Also, bar owners are interested in making money more than upholding the law. We are witnessing moral decay in the country as a result of pressing economic conditions."

In Zimbabwe it is a crime to sell beer to persons below the age of 18 as defined in the Liquor Act.

The last Global Status Report on Alcohol (2004) ranked Zimbabwe at number 12 on the list of top beer-drinking nations in Africa with per capita consumption of alcohol pegged at 5,08 litres per year against an continental average of 4 litres.

The ZNCWC report revealed that 68,7% of YWSS reported that they take alcoholic substances with 42% of them indicating that they take above six pints of beer daily.