Prostitution in Zimbabwe
by Ray Ndlovu
Notorious for their heavy-handed restraint of President Robert Mugabe’s political opponents, Zimbabwe’s police have now launched a crackdown on sex workers in the capital, Harare.
Although prostitution is illegal in Zimbabwe, civil liberties groups are concerned that police are violating the human rights of sex workers. Police officials, however, claim that they are simply doing their job and recent operations against sex workers are meant to clean up the city. The sex workers, for their part, accuse the police of arresting them and then soliciting sex for their release.
The reason for the police clampdown on prostitution is the upcoming United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) summit in Victoria Falls set for August 25th to 29th. The tourism and hospitality ministry estimates that nearly 3,000 delegates will attend the four-day summit, which Zimbabwe will co-host with neighbouring Zambia. Locals, including prostitutes, are keen to cash in on the international showcase. But Tinashe Mundawarara, the programme manager for the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), is concerned that the resort will turn into a place of friction between the police and the prostitutes.
“We are aware of the possibilities of conflict between sex workers and police,” Mr Mundawarara said. “As a law-based and human rights institution, we will, as we have always done, respond to any arbitrariness by the police.”
The signs of renewed hostilities between police and sex workers are already visible in Harare. In May the police began raiding flats and lodges in the city’s infamous red light district, Avenues. But in their zealousness to crack down on sex workers, police also imposed an 8pm curfew on women only. Although men are allowed to be on the streets after 8pm, police are now arbitrarily arresting any woman found walking alone for “loitering for purposes of prostitution”. Sometimes, police are even arresting women earlier than the curfew.
Since the start of the crackdown the ZLHR has helped to defend 60 women. Mr Mundawarara said the unlawful arrests had stripped the women of their dignity. “Such despicable acts done under the guise of law enforcement are disgraceful and unbecoming and should not be condoned by any well-meaning law enforcement agency,” Mr Mundawarara said. “It is sad to note that such prehistoric approaches to law enforcement are still being practised by our police force 33 years after independence.”
The previous colonial government of the late Prime Minister Ian Smith imposed curfews to stop liberation fighters from mobilising support against the state. Fombo Shumba, on official with the Musasa Project, an NGO that fights gender violence, said it was disappointing that the rights of women continued to be violated. “Women’s rights are human rights so women, just like their male counterparts, have a right to socialise.
They should be free to decide where to go and must feel secure and safe even on the streets at night,” Mrs Shumba said.
A December 2012 report by the UK-based Open Society Foundation lifted the lid on the prevailing hostilities between police and sex workers in Zimbabwe. The foundation’s report surveyed six nations: Kenya, Namibia, Russia, South Africa, the United States and Zimbabwe. It ranked Zimbabwe’s police worst for “harassing and physically abusing commercial sex workers”. In Zimbabwe, the report established that 85% of prostitutes had suffered extortion at the hands of law enforcement authorities, including the confiscation of condoms, beatings, threats of criminal charges, fines, sexual exploitation and detention.
The Open Society survey, entitled “Criminalising Condoms”, also accused the police of making indiscriminate searches of women’s handbags and using condoms as evidence of sex work. As a result, many prostitutes had opted not to carry condoms, fearing police harassment and detention. “By hindering sex workers’ ability to carry and use condoms, police actions increased sex workers’ risk of exposure to HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, as well as unwanted pregnancies, compromising sex workers’ health and the health of their sexual partners,” said the report.
“While one arm of government works to get condoms into people’s hands, another is taking them away,” said Heather Doyle, the director of the foundation’s sexual health and rights project. “The police are punishing people for doing the right thing, for carrying condoms and trying to protect their health.”
Of the 139 sex workers surveyed during August and September 2011, 83%, or 115 had either been intimidated or
harassed by police for being a sex worker or doing sex work, according to the report. A police spokeswoman, Charity Charamba, was unable to provide statistics on the number of sex workers arrested by police, saying only that the operation against prostitution in Harare had been a “resounding success”. Since independence in April 1980, crackdowns on prostitution have been a permanent feature of police work in Zimbabwe. Previous operations include “Operation Chipo Chiroorwa (Chipo Get Married)”, “Operation Chengetedza Hunhu (Maintain Your Dignity)”, “Operation Dyira Bonus Kumba (Take Your Bonus Money Home)” and the most recent, “Operation No to Loitering”.
One of the few voices that has emerged in conservative Zimbabwe to protest the abuse of sex workers is that of Tabitha Khumalo, an MP from the Movement for Democratic Change party. In December 2011, she stirred a hornets’ nest when she called for legalising sex work. “Our problems as Zimbabweans is that we don’t want to speak the truth,” Ms Khumalo said recently. “We are in denial when we pretend that sex workers are not there. Some of the beneficiaries are even top political bigwigs,” she added.
Last May’s police operation against the sex workers was centralised in Avenues, about 2km from the capital’s central business district. Prostitution rarely takes place openly in the city centre, perhaps due to the hive of commercial activity there. In contrast Avenues’s numerous lodges and flats offer the sex workers a safe haven to ply their trade. Sex workers claim that their refusal to submit to police officers’ demands for free sex sparked the recent police abuse.
During the raids in May, plain-clothes policemen frequented Avenues, while uniformed officers on bicycles pursued sex workers. But now, Avenues’s dimly-lit street corners are abandoned: the once common sight of skimpily dressed prostitutes has disappeared. Sex workers such as Susan Phiri have been forced to change tack.
Ms Phiri, 29, from Chegutu, about 120km south-west of Harare, said she now rendezvous with her regular clients at fast food outlets in the city centre for sex in lodges which her clients pre-book. Afterwards, Ms Phiri calls in a taxi—paid for by the client—to take her back to the fast food outlet.
It is no longer safe to work on the streets, said Ms Phiri, who has earned a living as a sex worker for the past two years. “I used to be on the streets at around 6pm everyday, but the police are making it difficult to conduct our business,” she said. “The police can detain you for a long time, while others demand sex and earnings as negotiation for your release.”
Ms Phiri said that she is expecting windfall profits from the UNWTO conference. She currently charges $30 for sex and sleeps with up to five men a day, she said. “It will be a busy time and a lot of money will be made there (Victoria Falls). I am still working out the logistics of going there, but I can tell you there will be a lot of competition,” she said.
Trevor Maisiri, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, said police could be expected to be on high alert at the UNWTO, but would likely shy away from causing any scenes and abusing sex workers. “The cat-and-mouse relationship with prostitutes is likely to continue, but I believe the police will try to sugar-coat it so as not to send the wrong message to international visitors of human rights abuses. It will be a delicate balancing act for all stakeholders involved at the tourism summit,” Mr Maisiri said.
The UNWTO will be held for the second time in Africa, after Senegal hosted the showcase in 2004. After a decade-long isolation from the international community, because of violent farm seizures instigated by war veterans loyal to Mr Mugabe, the UNWTO is widely viewed as a sign of Zimbabwe’s acceptance back into the international fold.
