It is a Friday night in one of Harare’s popular city centre night clubs.
NEWS IN DEPTH BY TAPIWA ZIVIRA
The louder the music plays, the more the beer flows and the harder the dozens of women scattered all over the dance floor wiggle and jiggle to the rhythm in rather seductive ways.
All the women here appear to have a taste for tight-fitting clothes, those outfits that reveal every detail of the bodily curves, and cover little of the thighs and chests.
Among the patrons of this club, a man — seemingly in his 20s — appears to have given in to his sexual desires as he springs from the tall pub chair, beer in hand, and approaches one of the dancing girls.
With his eyes gleefully transfixed on the girl’s behind like a lion waiting to devour its kill, he pats the girl on the shoulder and the two strike a conversation.
The two appear to whisper to each other and within seconds, they walk out of the bar, arm in arm, with the young man rubbing his hand all over the girl’s backside.
Out of the bar, they cross the street and go round to the back of a building that stands metres from the club and they stop at a gate that leads into an alleyway.
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A security guard is seen talking to the girl, and within a minute the guard — with his eyes on the streets — quickly opens the alleyway gate and the two “lovebirds” disappear into the dark as the guard closes the gate and resumes his watchman’s role.
The two remain inside for over 20 minutes and upon their exit, they make a brief exchange with the security guard before leaving the premises separately.
This, as The Standard later established, was one of the many cases where some security guards manning premises close to spots where sex workers solicit for clients give space for sexual encounters in the dead of the night.
They make a killing by providing security and space to prostitutes as they entertain their clients.
To put that to test and to get further details of how this happens, this reporter sought the help of Chipo, one of the sex workers who agreed to show us how it happens.
According to Chipo, sex workers have a tacit agreement with several security guards in strategic buildings in the city.
So, as night gathers and day workers leave their offices, business starts for those security guards that have access to any enclosed places within the buildings they guard.
For a dollar — sometimes more, depending on the day — a guard can offer these spaces to sex workers and their clients to entertain themselves.
“The guards know us, so when a potential client makes an approach for short-time sex and does not have accommodation nearby, I make it clear to him that we will have to do it at the back of a building, or in an alley,” Chipo said.
For $5, Chipo agrees to take this reporter to one of the buildings along Rezende Street, where she takes her clients.
The conditions were that this reporter would be undercover, disguised as a client.
Upon arrival, Chipo greets the guard and says, “I am here with my client for just 30 minutes,” to which the guard enquires if “the client has been briefed about the conditions” and Chipo nods, motioning this reporter to hand the security guard a dollar.
With his money stuffed in his pocket, the security guard immediately opens the gate that leads to the back of the building and instructs us to knock the gate when we are done.
“Don’t take too long,” he says before shutting the gate behind us.
Inside is a dark alley big enough to fit a haulage truck and is surrounded by three walls, one of which leads to the main building and has a wide door with steel shutters pulled down and fastened with gigantic locks.
A strong stench emanates from the walls and the little light emanating from other buildings illuminates what appears to be used condoms lying on the ground.
“He will clean these up at the end of his shift,” said Chipo, referring to the used condoms.
“So when we come with a client here we have sex while standing.
“As you can see, I am already dressed scantily so I will not have to take off my clothes, and he also does not have to take off his clothes as he simply lowers his pants and we have sex.”
She revealed graphic details of how many of them do not wear panties at all.
“There is no need for any foreplay. It has to be quick because the guard also has his superiors who come checking on him from time to time, and there will be others waiting outside with their clients” Chipo said.
Asked how this was possible, Chipo said it was related to the mental state of the male clients.
She said most of the men already have their minds readied for immediate sex and would not worry about the conditions under which they have it.
“Usually, people who hire me are sex-starved to the extent that all they need is to relieve themselves, but they often have two minds about whether a prostitute is the right one to relieve them or not and the more beer they take, the more they just want that sex,” the sex worker said.
“So, when they come to you asking for services, and you offer them a place close enough, they quickly oblige because all they want is to quench their thirst for sex.”
She said it was surprising that some men fantasised about sex while standing, and in an alley.
“They end up actually enjoying it to the extent that some come back and ask me to take them to the alley,” Chipo said.
Apart from the fantasies of some of her clients, Chipo said the rise of such incidences of sex in the alleys was due to the economic crisis, where temporary accommodation was fast becoming unaffordable.
“Back then, clients could afford to hire accommodation for up to $20 for an hour, but with the worsening economic situation, many men cannot afford that and when they want to hire us, they want us to have our own accommodation,” she said.
A survey around some of the lodges and houses in the city centre revealed they charge between $10 and $30 an hour, an amount that seekers of quick sex are not prepared to part with.
In addition, with the high rentals charged by landlords in the Avenues — the nearest residential area to the city centre and a natural hotspot for prostitution — many sex workers no longer afford to hire apartments to which they can bring their clients.
Instead, in a survey, it was revealed that many of the sex workers in the city centre and the Avenues travel from the many residential areas around Harare city centre, with some coming from as far as Epworth, Ruwa and Chitungwiza.
As a result, they are left with no means of accommodating their clients.
“So we had to devise a way, and the guards were easy because they also need the money, and some can make up to $10 a night,” said another sex worker.
The Standard visited several spots where prostitutes solicit for clients and discovered that the trend of using alleyways was spreading across the city centre.
All attempts to interview guards hit the wall as they denied using their premises for prostitutes despite the news crew having produced solid evidence.
Last year the Constitutional Court ruled that commercial sex workers could not be arrested on charges of “loitering for purposes of prostitution”.
The ruling followed an application filed by nine Harare women who argued that their arrest in 2014 and prosecution on charges of soliciting for prostitution contravened Section 49(1)(b) of the Constitution.
