To arm or not to arm prostitutes?

Factmore Dzobo Senior Reporter
PROSTITUTION remains a problematic vice despite being illegal in most Sub-Saharan countries. The world’s oldest profession continues to thrive and widespread awareness campaigns against HIV and Aids scourge have failed to scare away people from it.

A recent decision by the Southern Africa HIV and Aids Information Dissemination Services (SafAids) to equip sex workers countrywide with self-defensive pepper spray guns to protect themselves from physical abuse by violent clients has stirred public debate on prostitution.

SafAids communication director Tariro Makanga said the initiative was meant to reduce abuse of sex workers by some of their clients.

The SafAids initiative is similar to one in India where women are being armed to protect themselves from sexual abuse.

The Indian Ordnance Factory has designed the Nirbheek, a .32 bore light weight revolver, India’s first firearm designed for women. The firearm can snugly fit into a purse.

The light weight titanium alloy revolver was named in tribute to Nirbhaya, the pseudonym of a 23-year-old victim of a 2012 brutal gang rape on a bus.

Already more than 20 local sex workers have received pepper sprays in Mhondoro–Ngezi with more set to benefit throughout the country. The initiative to equip sex workers with pepper spray guns came after some reported incidents of sex workers beaten and killed by their clients in parts of the country.

Musasa Project director Netty Musanhu supported the move by SafAids, saying men should not take advantage of the illegality of prostitution to abuse and assault women. She said sex workers are human beings who should also enjoy their rights like any other human being and the trade is their means of survival.

“It’s only men who cry foul about sex workers because they are the chief culprits in promoting prostitution and abusing them. Men are the very people who seek services from sex workers and the industry is flourishing because of men. Most men want the services of sex workers and at the same time they don’t want to pay for the services rendered to them and that’s serious abuse which guarantees them to be protected against abusers,” she said.

Musanhu said men should not cry more than the bereaved because sexual violence and assault seriously affect the defenceless women who are trying to eke out a living from the trade.

Nomathemba Moyo of Women’s Action Group, supported the empowering of sex workers with pepper spray guns, saying giving sex workers the devices was not promoting sex work but it was a way of engaging and working with the key group in HIV prevention awareness campaigns, adding that intimate partner violence among sex workers was becoming increasingly high.

“In Zimbabwe sexual violence and assaults continue to increase almost everyday. Cases of female sex workers being physically abused by men continue to go on unabated. It’s not like encouraging them to be in sex work but this is a group that can’t be ignored in HIV prevention programmes. Let them be given these pepper sprays as most of them are exposed to violence yet many times they can’t report to the police,” she said.

However, a Bulawayo-based lawyer, Elias Zvimba, described the move by SafAids to equip sex workers with pepper spray guns as tantamount to the encouragement and legalising of the prostitution in the country.

“It’s a negation of the country’s laws as regards to prostitution. Giving ammunition to sex workers is like legalising the trade. It’s also a retrogressive move against the awareness campaigns that were made in the fight to reduce the spread of HIV and Aids in the country,” he said

Prostitution including solicitation, procuring, keeping a brothel is illegal. It is addressed in the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform Act), in Part III of Sexual Crimes and Crimes against Morality.

Provincial development officer in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development Vaidah Mashangwa said a lot of bad things were happening as a result of prostitution and it still remains a challenge to fight the vice in the country and there is no reason to support such illegal trade.

“Prostitution is illegal in the country so giving sex workers self-defensive pepper spray guns as part of their tools of trade is like legalising the vice. The main cause in the spread of HIV/Aids scourge is prostitution. Prostitution should be discouraged at all costs and women need to be empowered through self-help projects for them to move out of the illegal trade. Some marriages are breaking down as a result of disputes emanating from prostitution destroying the social fabric,” said Mashangwa.

A Bulawayo-based pastor, Reverend Sarah Nyathi, said prostitution should not be supported by whatever means because it’s immoral. She said instead sex workers need rehabilitation and deliverance from God.

“Prostitution is wicked in the eyes of the Lord. Those who are into this kind of profession need deliverance and rehabilitation. There should be a crusade to remove sex workers out of the streets and introduce them to God and find other means of economically empowering them,” she said.

A police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said sex workers are criminals by nature. He noted that many reported criminal cases of robbery and fraud implicated sex workers. The police officer said because of the criminality associated with sex workers, it is the reason why they arrest any women or men found loitering in the streets for suspected soliciting particularly during odd hours.

“Prostitutes, most of them are criminals, and several reported cases of criminality usually involve prostitutes and that’s the reason we arrest anyone found loitering in the night with the intention of prostituting. Some sex workers are criminals who rob their clients and this means men also need protection from these criminals masquerading as sex workers. Giving them spray guns is like encouraging them and reinforcing them to continue to do their evil escapades,” he said.

The issue of prostitution is socially and politically divisive, and difficult to form a consensus on.

Thabita Khumalo, an MDC-T legislator once proposed the legalising of prostitution as part of efforts to address various sexual and reproductive health rights challenges faced by sex workers in the region. Sexual abuse, assault and violence are frequently directed towards sex workers but due to the immoral nature of the profession, it is difficult for the victims to report the abuse.

Health experts warned that pepper sprays can cause blindness.

Prior to independence, colonial vagrancy laws were used against sex workers. In 1983 there was a major effort to eliminate sex work in post independence Zimbabwe by rounding up hundreds of women and detaining them till they could prove they were not involved in the trade, otherwise they were sent to resettlement camps to do time.