Zimbabwean sex workers in a Lusaka, Zambia, slum called Chawama walk to their rented room to attend to clients. They asked that their names and faces not be used. A man walks in and Mchena, dressed in a short black dress, rushes to meet for negotiations. She speaks with him briefly before leading him to her room. We have children that need to survive back home in Zimbabwe. Mchena is 25 and spoke on the condition that only her last name be used.
She is among the Zimbabwean women who have illegally trekked across the border to Zambia, hoping for a better life following economic turmoil in their country. As illegal immigrants, they say they cannot find employment, and sex work, although illegal, remains their only lucrative business option. The number of Zimbabwean nationals in Zambia is unknown, according to Namati Nshinka, the public relations officer for the Zambia Department of Immigration.
Another 93 Zimbabweans, both male and female, were arrested in October. Of the 93 arrested, 73 were repatriated while the other 20 were convicted and sent to Zambian prisons for various offences, Nshinka says.
In , the Zambia Department of Immigration arrested and repatriated suspected Zimbabwean sex workers around Lusaka, he says. Although sex trade is illegal in Zambia, Nshinka says the Zambia Department of Immigration arrest foreigners purely on immigration transgressions. Not even arrest has kept Mchena away. She says she was among the illegal immigrants who were repatriated in , but she returned. Another sex worker, Tatenda, who spoke on condition that her last name be withheld, said she left Zimbabwe last year because business was so bad in Zimbabwe.
There is no money. I could hardly earn anything so I had to move to another country. Sex trade for the Zimbabwean women has not been without hurdles in Zambia, but there is money to be made here, she says. We are ever running away from police and immigration officers. Nshinka warns Zambians against aiding foreigners who are in the country illegally. Those arrested face a jail sentence of at least two years, he says, under the Immigration and Deportation Act of , Chapter 46, subsection 1.
