With her unkempt hair tucked into a woolen hat, a faded T-shirt, skirt and a pair of torn canvas shoes, Nokhuthula Tshuma* does not fit the stereotypical profile of a commercial sex worker.
As an informal trader earning a living selling agricultural produce from rural areas to urban residents, it is difficult to link her to sex work and its inherent dangers.
Yet, the mother of three, like thousands of impoverished Zimbabwean women struggling to feed, clothe and educate their children in a hyperinflationary environment, is at great risk of HIV/Aids infection. Each time the women go to town on business they face being raped and contracting the disease.
In Zimbabwe, 1,7-million people of the country’s 13-million population are infected with HIV/Aids. Almost 900 000 of the infected are women.
As the Zimbabwean economy crumbles and the shortage of even basic goods increases, women often have to “play by the rules of men” to make ends meet. One such rule is to offer a “favour” — really a bribe — to secure scarce commodities and ensure they are not harassed by police officers.
For these impoverished and desperate women, the bribes take the form of offering “a little bit extra” — invariably sex — to male service providers and suppliers. If they don’t, they are hounded out of business.
For the cash-strapped women, sex offers an easy and cheap, albeit risky, means of supporting their families. In return, they are able to secure scarce goods, as well as discounts on transport and accommodation, and their businesses flourish.
Life for informal women traders in Zimbabwe is a constant battle to meet economic needs and safeguard their health.
Tshuma lives in the coal-mining town Hwange in the south of the country. Twice a month she makes the 400km round trip to Lusulu in Binga district.
Lusulu is a thriving agricultural area where Tshuma barters basic goods — such as soap, sugar and salt, which have disappeared from shop shelves — for maize. Normally she is away from home for a week.
If she had to pay for the transport, food and accommodation while she is away from home, she would make little profit. So, to boost her profit margins, she uses what is known as “bottom currency” to pay off bus crews to secure seats on overcrowded buses, truck drivers to ferry bags of maize back to Hwange and lodge owners to give her accommodation at discount rates.
Beauty Phiri started selling dried fish six months ago soon after the government’s clampdown on prices saw butchers’ refrigerators going empty.
An astute entrepreneur, Phiri saw a viable business opportunity selling dried fish to protein-starved Bulawayo residents. She sources her fish fresh from the Zambezi River in Binga from both Zimbabwean and Zambian fishermen.
She says it did take long for her to figure out that if she wanted to meet her requirements, she would have to sleep with the fishermen. Women fishmongers admit that fishermen prefer to deal with “generous women”.
And it’s not just women who have to give “favours”. Poor girl learners in remote schools often have to walk 20km to get to school. On the extreme end of the age scale are poor girl pupils in remote rural schools, such as Lusulu High School. Pupils walk an average of 20km to get to school. Many become “bush boarders”; bush boarding is an informal set-up where pupils build their own huts and have to find their own food and other basic requirements.
Most of these girls come from poor families who cannot afford regular supplies of food and cash. Many of these girls resort to illicit affairs with teachers, police officers and rich villagers, just to survive. About half of these girls end up dropping out of school because of pregnancies.
HIV/Aids awareness campaigns have done a lot to educate women about the dangers of unsafe sex. The women know that the disease has reduced the life expectancy of women in the country to 34 years and that the pandemic is decimating families. But some women have still not made the connection that by having sex they are increasing their chances of getting HIV/Aids.
Poverty drives these women to engage in risky behaviour.
While the women are away on business, their partners often turn to mistresses, known as “small houses” in Zimbabwe. The “small house” occupants often have numerous “partners” to enable them to make extra money.
In this way Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown — with hyperinflation now at almost 15 000% — is fuelling the vulnerability of women to HIV infection and erasing the gains of concerted HIV/Aids awareness and behaviour change campaigns.
The black market, a phenomenon triggered by acute shortages of basic goods and services, is forcing desperate women to forget the lessons learned from these campaigns.
The need for basic goods is erasing the women’s survival skills. Each time the Zimbabwe dollar tumbles, women’s chances of survival take another knock. And the sad truth is that efforts to break the vicious cycle will come to naught until the economic free-fall stops.
* Name has been changed
Miriam Madziwa is a freelance journalist based in Zimbabwe. This article is part of a series produced by the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service