TAMWA Was Spot-On on Alcohol and Sex
- Category: Gender
- Date 23-01-2005
- 368 views
The Tanzania Media Women’s Association (TAMWA) has advised the government to revoke and confiscate licences of bar owners who condone prostitution that involves girls who are not yet aged eighteen. Ananilea Nkya, the Executive Director of TAMWA, said that some girls are being used as bait to attract male customers who pay for casual sex to sleep in the so-called guesthouses, in addition to buying huge amounts of drinks to have fun with their illicit partners. In a survey conducted by TAMWA, most of the respondents (barmaids) said that they are ready to quit the business if they are offered small loans, while others said they are willing to enrol on short courses if sponsored. (See: TAMWA wants bar licences revoked The Citizen Tuesday 11th January 2005, page 4).
It instructive to point out that TAMWA deserves a pat on the back for venturing and making such a discovery into one of the most pertinent social anomalies in our midst today. It needs no saying that the very many young girls engaged in serving beers at the innumerable bars all-over the place are exposed to indescribable sexual harassment and exploitation from both their employers and the clients.
Anyone who has visited a pub must agree that apart from the opportunity to feast on alcoholic or other refreshments, the drinkers also have to contend with the temptations that go with seeing a near-naked lady, wearing very few inches of tight miniskirts that leave nothing to imagination. Presumably, bar owners have it as a requirement that the young girls dress in such suggestive garments and clearly, the stock on display for sale is not entirely the beers, but also the barmaids as an accompaniment.
We must however not forget that the exploited girls we are weeping over are never conscripted into the trade; they are not abducted or whipped by their tormentors to take any assignments at the bars. The biggest majority of these victims are known to come on their knees to seek employment in the pubs and are ready to do anything to keep their jobs, like any other person employed in another sector. Therefore, whereas TAMWA’s findings are revealing indeed, the given recommendations seem most unrealistic and so untenable.
To revoke the bar licences is not proper, for it could merely dispatch our victims into even riskier means of survival .To provide meaningful help and a lasting solution, the root causes of the bad situation at hand ought to be appreciated. The driving force behind this scenario is first and foremost poverty, which the girls wish to run away from.
Many barmaids are uneducated and therefore unable to get unemployed in better places, on better terms. Some of them are orphans and cannot do much to salvage themselves. Another compulsion emanates from the prevailing social pressure that glorifies sexual permissiveness and adventure, with the deterioration of religious and cultural values, lending credence to the fallacy that there is a prostitute in every woman; and there is a polygamist in every man.
With that in mind, TAMWA would have done better to come up with solutions that are both feasible and sustainable. It is one thing to identify a problem, but it is also another thing to solve it. Many civil society organisations like TAMWA are inclined to conducting research, addressing press conferences, and spending days of prolonged debate without designing follow-up programmes to overcome these social upheavals. We must avoid a situation whereby we portray ourselves as sheer armchair advocates, whose intention is limited to making accountability to the donors who provide the funds for programmes from which the findings have been obtained.
It might become disturbing if TAMWA stops at merely addressing a press conference. Instead, now that the problem is known, the real challenge is how set achievable goals, say by lobbying for the abolition of suggestive dressing by barmaids, to begin with. It might be useful as well to find out how many girls are currently trapped in this infamous trade, through systematic registration for example.
While these barmaids suggest that they would prefer to have access to small loans as escape route from the evident abuses associated with their work, this is clearly unhelpful since they have neither the skills nor preparation to start successful businesses. To simply dish out loans on the basis of their request is like throwing the money into the sea, for every business requires prior adequate consideration of how it should be managed.
We could perhaps think of how they can access free school opportunities for skills training and alternative, appropriate survival opportunities. And having experienced their circumstances already, any possibilities of counselling and rehabilitating them to start a new life should be regarded with utmost discernment. In a word, TAMWA has touched the sore part of the body and would thankfully do better to sustain the campaign to prescribe and administer the treatment.
By Venansio Ahabwe
Source: Peering Eye, Sunday Citizen