Faith says that the death of her parents β along with the abject poverty to which she remains subject β have robbed her of all hope of a normal life, forcing her to offer sexual services to adult clients. At her tender age, Faith must wiggle her waist lasciviously in an effort to attract customers to the Zone Night Club in Lusaka's Matero Township, where she currently works. When she is not at University Teaching Hospital receiving treatment for sexually transmitted infections, she is at one police station or another for engaging in prostitution.
Faith is just one of countless Zambian girls, aged between ten and 16, who can easily be spotted at bars, taverns and night clubs across the country offering sexual services in exchange for money. But, he noted, the girls rounded up in such patrols are usually released the following morning after paying "admission-of-guilt" fines of The law criminalizes sex with a child, which the law describes as any person under the age of 16, even in the event of their consent.
Hamoonga said that police were finding it difficult to track down men who have sex with underage girls due to a lack of complaints filed against them. Like Faith, Monica, 13, left her humble village for capital Lusaka following the death of her father. The year-old child recalls being thrown out of a hotel in the middle of the night after a disagreement with a client.
But neither disease nor jail troubles her much. Zambian police spokesman Lee Hamoonga says there is no law banning child prostitution. Hamoonga said the law was tough on men who hire children for sex. She says most of her clients were either high school students or older men. Monica says the ordeals she has suffered were not only dehumanizing but traumatic as well. Please contact us for subscription options. Related topics. We use cookies in a limited and restricted manner for specific purposes.
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