For a country dreaming of joining
the elite class of First World countries, Swaziland is fraught with an
undesirable cocktail of social ills and two things are at the very centre of it
all; religion and culture.
The two things we hold closest to
our hearts as a country are the main reasons why the ‘First World by 2022’ will
remain lofty a dream. An exciting rumour. Religion and Culture are not the
cause, but they definitely are the reason why we fail to address these social
ills adequately. I have said this somewhere, and don’t mind saying it again;
much of the time we let religion and culture cloud our understanding of issues,
hence our failure to design strategies to adequately address these issues.
Culture has been central a focus
in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Swaziland. I love culture and do
tolerate religion. Our affections for culture and religion ensures we are a
society without a moral vacuum, but does not take away the problems that come
with having an empty space where morals are supposed to be. Awareness is one
thing, being willing to conform is another.
Case in point, sex work. It is an
open secret; sex work does exist in Swaziland, in different ways! There is the
widely-accepted ‘white collar’ type of sex work and the ‘blue collar’ type of
sex work.
The 'white collar' sex worker goes
to work at her salaried 'day job' and does not publicly turn trick. She
supplements her salary by 'earning' extra money for the rent, tuition and related
fees, running her car and keeping her well supplied in expensive Brazilian hair
weaves, and a few extras like the crossover party and etcetera by sleeping with
one, two or more men regularly at the same time. She is in multiple concurrent sexual relationships – one of the key drivers of
the epidemic in the country.
(Worth pointing out is this is
not restricted to females only, the white collar type of sex work. Males are
also playing the field – for commercial purposes. Whilst Swaziland is still
struggling to come to grips with the whole idea that a man can be a sex worker,
countries such as Uganda have already begun implementing strategies to reach
out to male sex workers with information and services.)
The ‘blue collar’ sex worker, on
the other hand, openly works in the sex industry; going to work in locations where
her customers will find her and access her services at a fee – we’ve seen them
at roadsides and street corners. Personally, I have no objection to people
doing it. Well, that is as long as my family and those close to me stay as far
away from it as possible, because of the dangers, especially the physical
violence that come with the state protection for perpetrators of violence
against ‘ blue collar’ sex workers.
Research emerging from certain
parts of the world suggests that female university students are the fastest
growing segment of the sex industry, which points to sex work being more an
independent business choice than an issue of exploitation. Some of the women in
the sex industry come from healthy, well-adjusted families, and decide they
would rather work a few hours a week as a sex worker than work a low-paying
job. Or do both. Whatever the case, it still is mostly a matter of choice.
There is money to be made (so much for "ingubo ayinamali", LOL), and some sex-starved husbands to serve before they
get back to the warzone that their bedrooms have become.
In Swaziland, sex work is
illegal. Or rather, ‘blue collar’ sex, widely referred to as commercial sex (But,
if you really think about it though, all sex is commercial!), is illegal. The
laws that govern such are based largely on culture and religion than they are
on sense/lucidity. Being illegal an industry, it follows that there are no
supportive structures for those involved in it. Only jail awaits.
Now, consider this; the HIV
prevalence amongst ‘blue collar’ sex workers in Swaziland is 70.3%. In English,
this means 7 out of ten sex workers in Swaziland are HIV positive, more than
double (31%) the prevalence in the general population for females in same age
group (15-49). Of these, only 38.7 percent are receiving treatment from a
health care provider. Given the nature of the sexual networks in this lovely
country, this should be a cause for concern.
The restrictive laws are not helping
at all as they now serve as a barrier, not only to ‘blue collar’ sex workers
accessing required treatment, care and support services, but also to the
country’s mooted move towards joining the elite club.
Sex workers, the ‘blue collar’
type, are classified as most-at-risk populations in as far as HIV infection is
concerned, and it’s largely because of the laws. The same study from which the
figures above were taken, the MARPS Bio-Behavioural Surveillance Survey (BSS,
2012), revealed that 123 (39.2%) of the sex workers interviewed reported to
have ever been raped at some point, main culprits being one-time clients,
family members, regular partner, regular client, and uniformed (police,
military, security) officers.
Laws, along with social stigma,
make it easy for predators to go after ‘blue collar’ sex workers. This is just
one of the many structural risks that this particular group has to contend with
on a daily basis. For the ‘white collar sex worker, life is generally easy. To
her, and to society, hers is not sex work. She just earns extra income from
being 'kept' by regular man-friends, some of whom have wives and other women.
Condoms? Maybe in some but not all her relationships.
“It’s well-deserved. Anyone
involved in such illicit acts deserves all the suffering that comes their way.”
Common mutterings about the sex workers on the street corners and roadsides
aren’t they?! The question we should be asking ourselves though is, those rapists,
who do they go home to afterwards? It’s an Intersexions type of society this
Swaziland of ours; our lives intersect in many mysterious ways.
Alfred Alcorn once said, “The
moral high ground to which I aspired had turned into a slippery slope.” Perhaps
we need to come to that realization as a country as well. This moral high
ground, deeply rooted in religion and culture, is becoming very slippery by the
day.
Woza 2022!
