Acrosss the globe, the word sex workers would obviously raise eyebrows of people with a strong feeling of distaste. But few countries have organisations which are dedicated for their welfare and really help the community to prove themselves.
Six sex workers, three from Zimbabve and three from Kenya are in city to go through a process of ‘community to community’ capacity building.
Male sex worker B John Mathenge from Kenya in an interaction here in Ashodaya Academy said, sex workers do pay tax directly or indirectly but still the stigma continues.
Sharing his experience in India and comparing the situation of the community in their country, he said, unlike in India the community is not united. There is no one to create awareness among them as the society concentrates discriminating them.
Regarding his observations in the country, he said, the community to community engagement in Mysore is something which has to be imbibed in Kenya.
He said he is proud to meet with sex workers here who are running their own academy.
He said, “We as sex workers are both the problem and the solution. So there should be nothing for us without us”.
Phelister Wambolabdalla (Kenya), a female sex worker and also an associate of Kenya Sex Workers’ Alliance (KESWA), revealing bare truth of the problems faced by them in their country said, sex workers in Africa continue to face severe violence and harassment from police and the general public. “We sex workers are also human beings and need to be treated with equal respect.”
Read more here
A MT Darwin commercial sex worker who rushed to the police after being paid for her services with a fake US$100 bill, exposed a Mukumbura man who had US$37 000 in counterfeit notes.
The woman took Filver Katiyo to the police after he gave her the fake note.
At the police station, Katiyo implicated Shakie Gombo (39) of Zambezi Village in Mukumbura as the source of the money.
Gombo was yesterday slapped with an effective five-month prison term for possessing fake notes.
Bindura regional magistrate Mr William Bhila had sentenced Gombo to 12 months in jail before conditionally setting aside seven months.
This is a shocking incident but abuse and crimes of all types against sex workers are unfortunately common to us. Her family did not know she was a sex worker so her name cannot be revealed. She worked at a well-known Hillbrow brothel called The Ambassador. I spoke to my colleague Kholi Buthelezi, who is the National Coordinator of the Sisonke Sex Workers Movement. She said there is a traditional belief that the image of the killer is imprinted on the eyes of a murder victim, hence the murderer stabbed her eyes to prevent himself from being identified. The police are investigating.
Read more here
The woman had been hired overnight on Sunday evening, but decided to wash her clients clothes the following morning and as she was hanging the clothes on the laundry line, she was electrocuted, dying on the spot, said Lameck Chirwa, who stays in the neighbourhood where the incident occurred. But in a dramatic development, the deceaseds relatives have reportedly refused to bury her, demanding payment of roora (bride price) first from the alleged client, Last Mbele.
An officer at Machipisa Police Station confirmed the incident, but referred further questions to Harare provincial police spokesperson Inspector James Sabau. Sabau could, however, not comment as he was said to be in a meeting.
The sex worker, Mati Nhamo, had reportedly spent the night at her clients place and decided to do laundry the following morning when tragedy struck. Reports gathered indicated that the laundry line could have come into contact with a live cable resulting in her instant electrocution after she touched the line.
Read more here
Member of Parliament for Bulawayo East Thabitha Khumalo has stuck out in defence of sex work.
She has been maligned by fellow legislators and politicians, but she has refused to budge on an issue she believes is being unnecessarily swept under the carpet.
In an interview with NewsDay, Khumalo said there was so much silence around the issue of sex workers in Zimbabwe.
“The greatest challenge with humanity is that when we come to issues we have a conflict with we tend to take an avoiding strategy, but by avoiding a problem it does not go away,” she said.
Khumalo has pointed out that the silence around sex work is so thick that a lot of “progressive-thinking forces” including newspapers still refuse to call it “sex work”, but refer to it derogatorily as “prostitution”.
With Zimbabwe regarding itself a Christian nation, it usually approaches some issues, like prostitution, from a moralistic standpoint.
It is therefore by no coincidence that homosexuality — Zimbabwe’s greatest moral question of the decade — has also become not only its biggest constitutional question, but also a political issue.
Read more here