Zim: Sex sold for fuel
2006-11-02 17:28
Special Report
Zimbabwe’s PM Morgan Tsvangirai has called for openness in the country’s nascent diamond trade, getting underway after the lifting of a global ban over rights abuses.
A dusty road leads to the village of Wedza, where veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war eke out a meagre living on their farm cooperative, which after a promising start now brings only despair.
Harare - Women in central Zimbabwe are selling sex to truck drivers for fuel, said reports on Thursday.
They say it is more profitable than being paid in cash, police spokesperson Costa Taduwa told the Daily Mirror, which is a private but mainly pro-government newspaper.
It said the young women, from Midlands province, were soliciting truck drivers on the busy highway between Harare and Beitbridge, the border post with South Africa.
"It is really alarming that young women are exchanging sex for 20-litre containers of diesel or petrol," said Taduwa.
Fuel has been in short supply in Zimbabwe on and off for several years now, and there is a lucrative black market.
STIs increasing dramatically
The government has set the price of fuel at just more than $1.20 a litre, but it sells on the streets and in privately-run service stations for up to $8 a litre.
Sexually transmitted infections were increasing in the area, the acting matron of a local hospital confirmed.
Gladys Takawira of Mvuma District Hospital told the Daily Mirror that the cases of STIs treated by her institution monthly had dramatically risen in the last five months.
"Every day we treat different cases and we are seriously worried about this," she said.
About 3 000 people die from HIV/Aids in Zimbabwe every week.
- SAPA