Over 36,000 trapped young girls savedxml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

2008-07-06 11:30:37

By Mbena Mwanatongoni

It sounds incredible but it's true! Over 36,000 young girls, mostly ranging between the ages of nine and 17, have been rescued from domestic sexual violence and others from commercial sex trafficking over a period of nine years!

`You may not believe it but the rescued housemaids tell it all and without mincing words: It is mostly their employers who sexually abuse them.

Many of the sex assaulters are married men,` an activist of a xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Dar es Salaam headquartered civil society organisation says.

Edda Kawala, Programme Officer of Kiota Women`s Health and Development Organisation (Kiwohede), is supported by a 13-year girl (name withheld) who admits to have been trafficked into the city from Singida at the age of nine in 2004 when she was in Class III.

She had been promised sponsorship for further education, but ended up in forced hard labour and sex ordeals from her employer.

Both, the International Labour Office (ILO) and Conservation, Hotels, Domestic and Allied Workers` Union (CHODAWU) agree with Kiwohede on the existence of domestic abuses on housemaids and the prevalence of children engaging in prostitution.

They say: `It is a reality. It is a form of forced labour and slave-like practice.` Adds almost mournfully Justa Mwaituka, Kiwohede`s Executive Director: ``We believe the number of young girls suffering from these abuses is larger although we make every effort to reach them. Some of them phone us for help, and we instantly respond. We get community support, including the police.`

Mwaituka stresses that sexual abuse can cause a permanent scar on a victim and is always traumatic as attested by many girls I talked with during lengthy discussions this week. Because of this factor they undergo psycho-social counselling.

Of the 36,000 girls that were rescued from child prostitution, 25 per cent or about 10,000 girls were engaged in exploitative domestic work while the rest were trafficked.

`What is stunning is the fact that 60 per cent of them were brought to the city by their families or people closely associated or affiliated to their families,` reveals Mwaituka.

Talking of the characteristics, magnitude and hazards of child prostitution, she says that not many people are willing to discuss it: `It is still a taboo'.

Nobody wants to take it seriously, relegating the question to individual privacy.

The CSO had conducted a rapid assessment study on children in prostitution at places thought to promote high concentrations of child prostitution practices in four regions of Ruvuma, Mwanza, Dar es Salaam and Singida.

In Ruvuma Region the assessment was done at Majengo, Lizaboni, Bombambili and Ruvuma wards while for Mwanza Region it was carried out at Igoma, Nyakato, Mbugani, Pamba and Kirumba.

For Dar es Salaam Region it was made at Manzese, Kigogo, Msasani, Mikocheni, Kijitonyama, Mzimuni, Kinondoni and Tandale, and in Singida Region it was carried out at Sheluwi, Misigiri, Kiomboi and Igugumo wards as catchment areas for local trafficking of children for the purpose of domestic and commercial sexual work. Findings

The most salient factors leading to the development of child prostitution are poverty through the inability of parents to support their children.

`Actually some parents facilitate the trafficking of their children to urban areas in search of jobs.

Lack of hope, declining values, marital separations and domestic violence are causes of the increasing child prostitutes in the entertainment industry.

`Most of the child prostitutes were found in tourist places like brothels, hotels, guesthouses, disco bars, local brew shops, casinos and more generally in the entertainment industry.

Owners of these places utilized the girls to attract more customers and the girls were given false jobs. Normally the two parties do not enjoy positive cost-benefit balance, ` reveals the study.

It adds: `It is a ready-made market and children are not sexually exploited only because they are poor, but also because they are vulnerable to such pull factors.`

Another finding is that Child prostitution was a last resort for survival as it was noted that in order to survive in prostitution one needs a great deal of courage and a large dose of initiatives because engaging in prostitution is not for anyone: it is for those who can cope.

The study found a high mobility of children across the country.

Moving as domestic workers from a very young age, and often abused by the employers` houses, many girls find themselves without any other alternative than to engage in prostitution.

``The organised system that recruits girls into prostitution can involve ringleaders, but it is often the children themselves who recruit their siblings, friends or children living with them in the same house, neighbourhood or in the streets to engage in prostitution.

``In opposition to Tanzania's cultural norms, desperate parents have had their priorities impacted by their circumstances, and thus welcome this sort of trafficking, knowing they then have a guaranteed wage earner -they give up some of their daughters,`` it reveals.

Activists are now eyeing customers, who they say must be blamed for the escalating child prostitution, suggesting that the child prostitutes are too young to be blamed because they are forced into that hell from the challenging circumstances.

...trapped girls recount their ordeals

Sofia hails from Nyangao area in Lindi Region

She was brought to Dar es Salaam two years after she completed formal primary education on the pretext of employment.

``My employer was a woman but her brother regularly haunted me because he was always making sexual advances.

The man is married and has four children,`` Sofia (not real name) notes with untold humility.

Despite telling her employer on these strange goings-on, the answers put her off. She asked me to keep quiet about that as it was nothing strange. You will eventually get used to this, she had told me.``

Finally the young girl sought refuge at her aunt`s home, where she also found things were not as smooth as they should be.

At her tender age she was being approached by men well too above her age seeking sexual favours. She ran away and went to Kiwohede which she had learnt from other girls that it offered technical skills that would allow her to conduct a decent life.

-Sofia's case is slightly different to that of Jesca (also not her real name) who was literally picked from her ageing grandmother who was equally starved of resources to feed her granddaughter and two other grandchildren.

She was only 11 years when a village neighbour currently living in Dar es Salaam visited Mbeya where Jesca was staying.

``The woman pretended to be sympathetic and promised to further my education here in Dar es Salaam as I was then in Class III.

I came here four years ago in the company of `my saviour` who unfortunately never sent me to school and instead introduced me to house work.

``All the hard work in the house was charged to me and her children never touched any work.

Of course my parents were dead long ago, and that was the reason why grandma was keeping us.

Besides the hazardous labour I was being approached with temptations from my employer`s husband who wanted to sleep with me!

Then the news of an NGO which rescues unfortunate people of my like came to me. I called and I was rescued. I am now attending Class VI.``

    * SOURCE: Sunday Observer