In Livingstone, Zambia’s tourist capital, the cat fights are happening with a regular frequency. Often, they degenerate from hair pulling bouts to ugly brawls involving the use of stilettos and beer bottles as weapons.
If the flesh trade is the oldest profession in the world, then war turfs between sex workers are nothing new. As the town increasingly witnesses at night spots, Zambian sex workers are harassing their Zimbabwean counterparts for allegedly charging lower-than-normal rates.
The heavily contested for clientele in Zambia’s number one tourist city are mainly white tourists who are willing to pay substantial amounts for the company of an African woman. The rate, according to the Zambian hookers, ranges from US$20 upwards, but Zimbabwean girls charge as little as US$5.
Police or security personnel manning the premises have, on a number of occasions, been called upon to break up the scuffles. They recently arrested four sex workers who assaulted a trader-cum-sex worker from Zimbabwe.
According to locals, the major reason for the discrepancies is that while most of the Zambian prostitutes hang around Livingstone’s central business district (CBD) thereby having an idea of what a good charge would be, their Zimbabwean counterparts are simply out to raise money without doing any research.
“Zambian girls give first priority to whites while those from across (Zimbabwe) don’t mind anyone. All they want is money and US$5 for the proverbial ‘short time’ (one encounter) is not bad for them. We see a lot of fights here because of the differences in charges,” said Chrispin Mwesha, a local currency trader.
He said tourists, who usually do not want to wait on prostitutes for a long time, are in hurry to whisk them away, hence giving them leverage to demand even up to US$50 for the “short time.”
Though beneficial to the prostitutes, the tourists’ generosity has been working against local men and, as a result, there has also been tensions between the locals who hang out with prostitutes and tourists.
“An ordinary Zambian man grappling to survive cannot afford that kind of generosity.
“Zambian girls are becoming unaffordable for the local guy because these same tourists give them too much money. The only hope for a poor fellow like me are the sisters from Zimbabwe, but they are also being driven away by the Zambians girls,” said a nightclub reveler, without wanting to be named.
Sex workers spoken to in Livingstone, some of whom travel from places as far as 1000 kilometers away, said they went to the tourist capital not to view the Victoria Falls but to make money.
“I came here for money, I am not a tourist. If I was, I would have gone to see the Victoria Falls and then gone back the same day I came here. If I was demanding the same amount as I was charging in Lusaka, then why come here at all?” said a Zambian sex worker, Catharine Nyirenda, who claimed she had no reason to withhold her identity and rushed off to do her business after realising the author was not a potential client. He was wasting her time.
One from Zimbabwe said due to pressure from Zambians, she and her colleagues were reluctantly beginning to hike the charges in order to remain in busy nightspots.
“If we go to those bars that are not busy, at times we get no customers the whole night. If you are lucky, you get one or two. Otherwise, it’s only worthwhile to be at such places if the guy takes you the whole night, but that is not easy. We just have to go back and agree with the Zambians,” she said while seeking to remain anonymous.
Only a few “brave” Zimbabwean sex workers still go to popular nightspots in the heart of Livingstone. Since the upsurge in tourists visiting Livingstone a few years ago, there has been a heavy presence of prostitutes who now even go to extremes of knocking at doors of hotel clients.
Locals say the prostitutes connive with hotel receptionists to show them the rooms of potential clients who they usually approach scantily dressed as a way of luring them.
In the end while Zambian girls cherish luxury life shopping for personal effects such as clothes and adornments, drinks and sumptuous meals, their Zimbabwean counterparts buy goods which they ferry back home for selling. The goods range from groceries to furniture. Some are said to have reformed after making a fortune, having been initially driven into prostitution by poverty.
Prostitution is illegal in Zambia but authorities have failed to contain it. There have calls for the legalisation of prostitution.
In October last year, Botswana’s former President Festus Mogae told President Rupiah Banda at State House that sex workers are part of society and should not be discriminated against, hence the need to legalise prostitution.
Even young girls below the age of 16 are also increasingly getting involved in prostitution not only in Zambia but throughout Southern Africa.
According to a research done by an independent consultant, Viktoria Perschler-Desai, who previously worked as a project officer in the United Nations Children’s Fund’s Child Rights Protection Unit, child prostitution is a growing phenomenon in Southern Africa.
“The reasons for this are multiple, but they include chronic family poverty owing to lack of employment for adults and young persons; a breakdown in family support mechanisms; migration; gender inequality; and the impact of HIV/AIDS (some orphaned girls turn to prostitution for survival),” she says.
She says another contributory factor is the inadequacy of the education systems in Southern Africa, which provide quality schooling for only a limited number of children. Many girls that drop out of school and cannot find employment or get married resort to prostitution.
In Botswana, the conflict between local and Zimbabwean sex workers is often repeated. The clutch of sex workers from across the border ply their trade in Gaborone’s red-light district – which stretches some 5.3 km, starting at the BNPC circle, arching past the Gaborone Sun, and ending at Middle Star. Their other pet spot is the Gaborone West Mall, where police have conducted the occasional midnight swoop.
Meanwhile, some politicians here are calling for Botswana to legalise prostitution as a way to fight against HIV. Botlogile Tshireletso, assistant minister for local government and housing, recently broke ranks with her cabinet colleagues by saying it was time government discussed the issue.
“My opinion is: We should consider looking at it because it is there ÔÇô we should as government take the initiative to do something to help these workers,” Tshireletso told BBC’s Network for Africa programme.
Opposition Botswana Democratic Congress (BCP) leader Dumelang Saleshando while agreeing, said any move towards legalising the sex trade would involve a steep battle.
“The majority view is very clear, Botswana is against the legislation making illegal sex work a legal economic activity,” he told the BBC. “At the same time, you can’t ignore it…the industry itself is one of the drivers of the virus.”
But despite research that infection rates are worst along commercial truck routes, there is an unwillingness to legalise brothels. Indeed, many people here disapprove of sex workers, many of who evidently are for the idea of legalising their trade.
“[Legalising sex work] will help us to stand up for our rights… and get support for HIV and Aids,” one sex worker in Ledumadumane, Gaborone, said.
Several people spoken to on the issue disagreed strongly with this. “If it is legalised more people are going to engage in commercial sex which means there’ll be more infections,” said one woman.
A few men, though, spoke in favour of the sentiment for legalization of the trade. “It should be legalised because it’s a lot harder to govern something you don’t have the statistics on,” said one man, choosing to remain unnamed.
