Child Trafficking in Zimbabwe Worse Than Thought

Harare, Zimbabwe: The Herald newspaper published this article on August 22, pointing out that while Zimbabwe has been included in many major studies focusing on cross-border trafficking of children and women, trafficking within the country has gone largely unchecked. The trafficking of children, most especially.

From Zimbabwe: Stop Trafficking in Women and Children by, Ropafadzo Mapimhidze:

Salome, an 18-year-old teenager from Epworth, recently revealed in an interview this week that she had been a sex slave since she was 13 years old.

A friend of her aunt who promised her a job at a food outlet brought in Salome, an orphan, from Murehwa, but her nightmare began three days after arriving at her house in Mbare.

"I was told on the third day to dress up in clothes she had bought. I was instructed to wear make-up and to join her at a local pub. When we got there at around 9pm I was made to drink alcohol and I was introduced to all sorts of men. That night I was forced to go with some man at her house where he raped me.

"That became the trend until I no longer went to the bar but instead clients would come to the house any time of the day and the money would be paid to the woman. I lived there like a prisoner and I never set foot in the city centre for the period I lived there.

"I was threatened not to tell anyone until I fell pregnant when I turned 15 and she chased me away in December last year. I then found myself on the streets.

"I was too scared to go back to my rural area because I had nothing to show for the few years that I had been working and so I am now living in Epworth with other teenage girls that have been through more or less the same ordeal. My baby died from pneumonia a few months after birth," Salome said.

When asked how they were surviving, she said they had resorted to full-time prostitution and that they walked the streets of Harare at night seeking clients.