By ANN ZULU
MANY people see prostitution - the act of trading
one’s body for money and other material things - as normal. In fact in most
parts of the world, prostitution has been legalized.
However when a child engages in it, it becomes a
global discourse.
Charity, 17, is one of the many children in Zambia who
is living her life as a prostitute.
Leaving Chongwe, her hometown, to search for greener
pastures in Lusaka, all Charity was offered was the streets as a home and a
baby to look after.
“I don’t know the whereabouts of the father of my
child, I have not seen him in a while,” she told me.
Apparently, she had been abandoned by the man who
impregnated her, the same man who deceived her that he loved her and had
encouraged her into sleeping with other men to sustain them.
Consequently, after the baby was born 10 months ago,
the only trade Charity had been taught for survival was prostitution.
She has religiously followed this path so she and her
baby will live by the day. She sleeps with more than three men every day to
make a daily wage of K50.
To many people, a K50 is nothing but to Charity it’s a
pay-off for a rigorous day’s job. Unfortunately, sometimes the money is
snatched by some of her wicked clients.
She added that on two occasions some men had pretended
they wanted her to render a helping hand, but molested and raped her and all she
could do was to cry and dry her own tears.
Charity is a mother while she herself still needs the
guardian hands of a mother. One wonders how many girls in her predicament would
have handled this situation.
She had the choice of a risky abortion and a perhaps a
normal life all over again but she opted to be a parent at her tender age.
She must have felt tremendous love for her unborn
child and in the midst of all the hardship and emotional turmoil, Charity chose
to hold her baby for nine months in her womb and bring her forth into the
world. Charity is indeed a true epitome of a strong African woman.
As we talked, she hurriedly averted her attention to
respond to the cry of her hungry baby girl. She caressed her and briskly
unbuttoned her blouse so she could reach her breast to feed her child.
As baby Mapalo drew food from her mother’s nipple, I
wondered just how safe and healthy the breast milk was for her baby.
“I don’t know if I’ve contracted any disease because I
don’t go to the hospital,” she said.
Clearly, Charity had been practising unprotected sex. And
if anything was wrong with her, her 10 months old baby will share it too.
And what happened to Mapalo whenever her mother had to
serve a client?
Charity said every time she had a ‘‘business’’ call,
she left her daughter with a certain woman who sells cassava by the road side
and paid her K5 when she returned. What a life! What a future for Mapalo!
Does Charity have friends?
“I don’t have any friends; it’s a dangerous world out
there to befriend anybody. Most times I hang around pubs and most of the girls
usually smoke and drink and get into fights with the men. I don’t want to be
part of bad company especially for the safety of my daughter,” she said.
Charity seems to know what she’s up to and what she
wants for her daughter and like every other girl that has dreams and fantasies,
Charity has always wanted to be a teacher.
There are many such girls on the streets of Zambia, who
are victims of their own circumstances.
Child prostitution is on the increase. Our society is
becoming unfriendly to children each day. Unfortunately, prostitution to some
of them is the last resort.
Many of these children have been denied love and
parental care. Others just drift away from their homes to seek material wealth
which they think have been deprived of.
In most cases they are victims of poverty and cruelty
- men and women who are supposed to be protecting them take advantage of their
vulnerability and abuse them sexually. In the process they destroy a bright
future.
Charity is a classic example of a new breed of Zambian
citizens: young, abused, vulnerable kids who learn life the hard away on the
street – some with a baby on their back.
One wonders what tomorrow holds for many of them.
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