Prostitution in Zimbabwe
Prostitution in Zimbabwe
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Prostitution in Zimbabwe

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Prostitution in Zimbabwe

Prostitution in Zimbabwe and related acts, including solicitation, procuring, and keeping a brothel, are illegal but thriving. Zimbabwe's dire economic situation has forced many women into sex work.

In the 1890s the Second Boer War disrupted the sex trade in the gold-mining areas of Witwatersrand in South Africa, and the dispersal of the sex trade led to "urban problems" in what was then Southern Rhodesia. Public pressure led to the passage of immorality legislation in 1900.

Prior to independence (1980) colonial vagrancy laws were used against sex workers. In 1983 there was a major effort to eliminate sex work in post-independence Zimbabwe by rounding up hundreds of women and detaining them until they could prove they were not involved in the trade, otherwise they were sent to resettlement camps. A number of women's groups supported this as strengthening marriage.

As with many African countries, the onset of HIV/AIDS dramatically increased the interest in sex work.

Prostitution is addressed in Part III of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act 2004.

The police can arrest any woman walking (in the streets) after 7pm.

In 2011 Thabita Khumalo, a MDC-T MP, proposed that prostitution in Zimbabwe be decriminalised. She stated that decriminalizing prostitution would address three important issues: corruption, HIV/Aids and women’s rights. Khumalo, who has suggested that the word prostitute be changed to pleasure engineer, has continued her campaign despite being demoted in her party in 2012. She has claimed her position on the issue may have contributed to this. She is supported by the Zimbabwe Women’s Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN), in addition to sex workers themselves.

The UK based Open Society Foundations reported in 2012 that the police are the greatest abusers of sex workers in Zimbabwe.

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