africa2

In Africa, Money Isn't Only Reason Young Girls Are Sexually Exploited
Lusaka, Zambia--Wendy (not her real name) was 14 when her father sold her into
marriage. Her husband was an older man she had never met who paid her family $25 as a
lobola, or bride price. He took the girl away from her village in northern Zambia to a
shantytown on the edge of the capital 300 miles away. Now she sits, aged 16, in a loveless
marriage in a shack, forced to cook, clean, and have sex with a man she doesn't like but
who continually reminds her he "owns" her. Did she want to get married? "No." Does she
want to continue her marriage? "No!" Why did her parents do it? The slender girl shrugs.
"They needed the money. It's the way things are done here." Poverty and the low status of
women are fuelling the sexual exploitation of girls in Africa, the world's poorest continent.
Paying lobola for children is among the more traditional forms of abusing girls, who are
seen as mere commodities to be traded away. But the practice is just a tiny element of the
problem, experts say. AIDS, hunger, and wars have weakened family structures and sent
thousands, if not millions, of young orphans and desperate girls onto the streets for
prostitution as a means to somehow survive. The myth that having sex with a young girl will
cure AIDS is also contributing to demand. From the refugee camps of Sierra Leone to the
city streets of Nairobi and truck routes of Tanzania, children are offering their bodies for as
little as a sandwich or shoes. The offenders are employers, foreign peacekeepers,
soldiers, and even guardians who encourage girls to earn money by whatever means.
Experts say child sexual exploitation in Africa differs from other parts of the world, where
the motivation is primarily money. In Africa, victims are often abused by soldiers in such
battlefields as Angola, Rwanda, or Liberia; taken as slaves in Sudan; or forced into sex
while working as domestic workers across the continent. "It's not overt commercialized
sexual exploitation as in parts of Asia. Transactions are frequently power- or fear-related
rather than monetary," says Martin Mogwanja, UNICEF's deputy director for West and
Central Africa. A notable exception is South Africa, one of Africa's richest countries, where
a child sex industry is developing in the tourist ports of Cape Town and Durban. Boys and
girls as young as 6 are kidnapped by gangs and forced into prostitution, sometimes
catering to foreigners, says Bernadette van Vuuren, advocacy director of the Cape
Town-based Resources Aimed at Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. Experts say it is
impossible to estimate how many thousands, if not millions, of African children are being
sexually exploited. But with conflicts in at least half a dozen countries and 5 million AIDS
orphans expected in Africa by the year 2000, the number of cases is expected to soar. An
idea of the crisis can be gleaned by studies in individual communities. A YWCA survey in
Bo, Sierra Leone's second-largest city, which is overrun by war refugees, showed that 54
of 90 girls surveyed were involved in prostitution. And in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa,
more than half of 100,000 prostitutes are under 18, according to Save the Children, an
international charity. One of the worst places for the sexual exploitation of minors is
Zambia, where one of Africa's highest levels of AIDS and five years of harsh austerity
measures that have curtailed free social services have sent armies of girls into the streets.
Among them was Justine Kalandanya, 15, who has been a prostitute for four years, along
with her mother and older sister. "It all began when my daddy died, and I had to earn
money for school fees," she said, cradling a baby, her third. She joined a rehabilitation
center, Tacintha, but now the program is running out of money. Justine has returned to the
streets to earn money for food.