BULAWAYO, ZIMBABWE -- Locked in a filthy cell that was built for eight inmates, but filled with more than 25 women, Nyasha Maphosa, 32, a sex worker based in the town of Gokwe in the Midlands province, writhes in agony as the torture of the previous night takes its toll on her diminutive figure. She has endured 48 hours of detention after being picked up by the Zimbabwe Republic Police patrol team. The charge: loitering for the purposes of prostitution.
At her shabby one bedroom cottage, a day after her release from detention, Maphosa relives her ordeal, berating the police officers for their cruelty.
“I was just leaving the pub with two female friends when a mounted patrol team ordered us to stop for questioning,” says Maphosa. “Two of the officers were familiar to me because they were my casual clients,” she claims. "Initially I thought they wanted to do business. I was surprised when they handcuffed us and took us to the charge office,” Maphosa added.
At the charge office, Maphosa and her friends were told that they were under arrest for loitering for the purposes of prostitution. No statement was recorded by the police. Maphosa denies any allegation that she had broken the law. And, she says her stay in custody was horrific. Police officers would occasionally visit the cell and take her and her friends to another office where they would ridicule them and order them to perform demeaning and painful acts, such as demonstrating sexual acts, sleeping on wet floors and forcing them to relieve themselves in the presence of the officers.
“At one point during the night, a male constable took us into an office. He said that since we were prostitutes, he wanted us to show him how we do it with our clients,” claims Maphosa.
She says that she and her friends were also ordered to crawl on the floor where sand had been scattered, an ordeal that lasted for nearly 30 minutes.
“After performing the degrading acts in front of the police officers, we were taken back to the cell,” she says.
During that same night Maphosa says that some woman constables visited the cell and started to call her and her friends all sorts of names, scolding them for infecting men with sexually transmitted diseases and spreading HIV.
A spokesman from the Gokwe Central Police Station would not comment on Maphosa’s case. When contacted, the commanding officer referred the matter to the national police chief spokesperson, who said he was not available for comment.
After two days of physical, emotional and verbal attacks, Maphosa and her friends were released without formal charges filed against them. Maphosa says she would like to file a complaint against the officers who tormented her, but there is no law in Zimbabwe to protect sex workers from violence or abuse. And the practice of mistreating sex workers is widespread.
“There is nowhere to report. All over the country police officers treat us in this way. They harass us willy-nilly, they force us to have sex with them for free and if we refuse, they arrest us,” says Maphosa.
Maphosa and her friends are not the only sex workers in Zimbabwe who have suffered brutality at the hands of the police. Sex work is widespread in Zimbabwe where the majority of sex workers are young women. There are also some men, old women and young boys who engage in sex work. Almost every sex worker in the country has suffered some form of physical, psychological, verbal or sexual abuse.
Precious Moyo, 23, an outdoor sex worker based in Bulawayo, says the violation of sex workers’ rights is also carried out by clients, the community — particularly the church — and managers and owners of night clubs.
“Our clients are not always honest people. Sometimes we hook up with abusive and violent clients. Some clients pretend to be policemen so that they do not pay for services. Some pay and later steal the money, while others refuse to use condoms or force us to have anal sex, gang sex or force us to have sex many times during one night,” says Moyo.
Maina Pukuto, 28, an indoor sex worker based in Bulawayo, says that the community, also violated their right to equality, dignity and privacy.
“We face stigma and we are not treated like normal people. Our landladies can kick us out of our rented houses anytime if they find out that we are sex workers,” says Pukuto.
Pukuto adds that club managers violated their right to freedom of trade, occupation and profession by demanding free sex and, if the women refuse, they are barred from entering the club.
A baseline survey to ascertain risks faced by sex workers in Gokwe town conducted in 2008 by the Sexual Rights Centre, a member organization of the African Alliance of Sex Workers, reveals that sex workers are detained and forced to engage in sexual activities with police officers to ensure their release. Police officers also offer protection to sex workers in return for free sex. The rape of sex workers is common, but cases are rarely reported for fear of repercussions and because of negative and discriminatory attitudes towards sex workers.
The deteriorating economy in Zimbabwe may be a contributing to the significant increase in the number of sex workers in the country in recent years.
Sian Maseko, 30, the director of the SRC, says the pathways that lead people into sex work are varied.
“Some undertake sex work by choice and are well organized with respect to their sexual health and accessing services. These workers may succeed in exiting the industry at a time of their choice,” Maseko explained. “Others are driven into sex work through coercion. These workers, including women sold for the purposes of trafficking, who are highly vulnerable and have little prospect of leaving the industry unassisted. Between these extremes lie the majority, who work in the industry due to varying degrees of economic necessity and choice,” Maseko added.
The baseline survey by the SRC revealed that sex workers face multiple risks to their health, well-being and safety. Among them are HIV/AIDS, violence perpetrated by clients, police harassment, poverty and stigma from the church and community. The baseline survey also showed that sex workers see their risks for HIV/AIDS as more abstract than other more immediate problems.
Local Laws Limit Rights
Ndivhadzo Siphuma, 37, a lawyer with Sansole and Senda legal practitioners, a legal firm based in Bulawayo, says the law, as it currently stands, violates sex workers’ rights and makes it difficult for sex workers to stand up for themselves and demand to be protected by the law.
“The Miscellaneous Offenses Act makes it a crime for a woman to ‘loiter for purposes of prostitution.’ However, criminalizing sex work acts as a barrier to ensuring that sex workers are protected from violence,” he explains.
Simiarly, the Criminal Codification Act makes it an offense to live on earnings from a brothel. “The law seeks to suppress sex work without actually making the act of having sexual intercourse in private with a sex worker illegal,” says Siphuma.
In one recent operation, police arrested 54 women for loitering for the purposes of prostitution, according to the state-owned newspaper, The Herald. The paper states that the operation was planned after officers received complaints that “‘most of the city’s lodges and night clubs had been turned into brothels.’”
Siphuma says that the current laws used against sex workers have grey areas. This makes it difficult for sex workers to demand their rights leaving most of them agreeing to pay an admission of guilt fine when they are arrested.
Sian Maseko, 30, the Director of the Sexual Rights Centre, says that the loopholes in the current laws have seen police officers, clients and the community violating the rights of sex workers.
Experts differ on how to solve the problem of both sex work and the rights violations of sex workers.
Maseko, believes sex work should be legalized in order to reduce violence and abuses that they routinely face.
“As an organization, we seek to advance the human rights of all sex workers, regardless of their reasons for becoming sex workers. These rights include the right to be free from violence — particularly sexual violence — the right to security and integrity of their person, the right to bodily integrity and the right to self-determination,” says Maseko.
Stigma Prevents Medical Care
Maphosa, one of the few sex workers willing to go on record, says that local prostitutes also struggle to receive sound medical care here. She alleges that nurses in local clinics deride sex workers and give them last preference when they seek treatment. On several occasions she has been the last person to receive medical attention in a clinic, if at all.
Maseko, says that stigma associated with sex work acts as the primary barrier for accessing health and social services. However, Godfrey Nkomo, a local state registered nurse, refuted the allegations, saying that nurses and doctors never question patients on whether or not they are sex workers.
“All patients receive equal treatment. We are professional in our work and we never question whether someone is a sex worker or not,” claims Nkomo.
Sex workers also suffer from a plethora of other discriminatory practices, including difficulty accessing courts and legal services related to child welfare, permission to obtain an abortion and protection from harassment.
Maseko of SRC, says her organization does not aim to rehabilitate sex workers. “Our organization encourages sex workers to take positive steps on their own behalf and ensure that sex workers are entitled to their human rights,” says Maseko.
Zimbabwe is not the only country in the region where experts and activists claim human rights violations among sex workers. A report recently released by Open Society Institute entitled, Rights Not Rescue, explores the experiences of female, male and trans-sexual sex workers in Botswana, South Africa and Namibia. The challenges faced by sex workers in all of the identified countries are very similar.
Maphosa bemoans the harsh environment under which sex workers operate in Zimbabwe and wishes for change in attitudes by the police in particular and the community in general.
Maphosa says she believes sex workers have rights like all citizens and that it is the duty of the government to ensure that they are protected from violence.
“There is a very high demand for our services. Even politicians and other respected members of the community seek our services, yet we continue to be treated like dogs in public,” Maphosa says.
