…12 year olds turn to sex work to fend for families
…STIs on the increase
THE Hwange Colliery Company (HCC) human resources crisis whereby the company has not been paying its employees over the past five years has culminated into a fully blown health disaster following indications that girls as young as 12 have ventured into sex work while cases of Sexually Transmitted Infections and illegal abortions are on the rise.
HealthTimes Reporter
These revelations came to light at a press conference in Harare, where, Thobekile Shoko the spokesperson for Hwange Colliery Mine Workers Spouses (HCWS) said the rate of child marriages and under age prostitution has gone up drastically.
“The reason why we demonstrated is that our husbands have not been getting their salaries over the past five years. It’s very hard for man to leave under such circumstances and abuse. Our husbands come home every day for the past five years with nothing for the family and forcing us women to go out there and work for other women and some of our women have turned to prostitution and the rate of HIV is very high.
“Even young girls soon after completing Grade 7 they go into sex work. Hwange is a mining community and truck drivers who ferry Coal pounce on these young girls and they are flocking to truck drivers because that is where the money is,” said Shoko.
She added that husbands in Hwange no longer ask their wives where they would have got the money food as what matters now is survival and not the source of food.
“Our men no longer care where the food comes from. Even the strength to ask the circumstances that could have led to the purchase of food are no longer necessary. They know where the food would have come from but they can’t ask anymore.
“We are serving on domestic work and the challenge is at times we work for ZESA employees who get paid every month. Their husbands end up molesting us but because you still need money you can’t quit the job or tell anyone about it,” added Shoko.
However, management is turning a deaf ear and bragging that they don’t care about the women’s needs as long as production is happening.
“We are now worried, the government has neglected us on this issue, we have had a number of visits by parliamentarians and they promised to take the issue to parliament.”
Parliamentary women caucus representative Paurina Mpariwa said it was high government acted on the matter and reduce the risk the situation is posing on the Hwange community.
