Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. HAVING dropped out of school at Grade 6, 25-year-old Bongani Fainos (not her real name) could only think of securing a job as a housemaid so that she could take care of her children.
But life had its own course for her.
She is now a sex worker in Beitbridge.
During a recent visit, she stood out from her peers: a toddler strapped to her back and a visible pregnancy.
“I had my first child at 15 and the second at 18,while staying with the man I had eloped to somewhere quite far from my rural home.
“He married another woman and that was the beginning of my challenges,” Fainos recalled.
“I opted to leave the marriage set-up as I could not cope.
“Things had become worse when the second wife was brought home, so I left with my children.”
Fainos could not provide for her children back home and took some advice she would live to regret. She heeded a call from a friend to join the world’s oldest profession at the border town of Beitbridge.
Having engaged in the practice, she would later move in with a man who had impregnated her and she bore him a child.
“Several months after giving birth, things turned sour again and I left,” she said.
A mishap with her chosen contraceptive method worsened her already troubled life.
While still breastfeeding her third child, she found out that she was expecting again.
She confessed to living in abject poverty at the moment as she cannot work until she gives birth.
Hers is a sad mirror of reality, with the country reeling under economic pressure, whereby the rich continue amassing riches, while the poor have no way out of the sinkhole.
A recent conversation with her brought out an even sadder reality: at such an age, she is HIV positive.
Having been unlucky with marriages, she still feels her way out of the economic mess she lives in is through a man, who should be a provider. During a recent tour of Matebeleland South province organised by the National Aids Council (NAC) ahead of this year’s World Aids Day commemorations, Fainos opened up that she was willing to get back together with her lover, the one who impregnated her.
This is despite the fact that he has never given her any support since they parted ways.
NAC provincial manager for Matebeleland South, Mgcini Sibanda, expressed worry over the plight of women in the province.
He said women were prone to getting infected with HIV owing to their dependence on men for economic support.
“In the majority of cases here, they are having sex with older people, men, what we call intergenerational sex, where men have power and influence, economic power and again because of their ages, socially they will respect them, which makes it difficult for the adolescent girls and young women to negotiate for safer sex.”
While speaking during the World Aids Day commemorations held at Mzingwane High School in Umzingwane district, NAC chief executive officer Bernard Madzima decried adolescent girls and young women’s predicament in the face of HIV infection.
Matebeleland South has recorded the highest HIV prevalence in Zimbabwe, with new data showing that the province’s rate has reached 15%, well above the national average of 9%.
Female HIV incidence rates have now surpassed those of males in all seven districts of the province. Bulilima has the highest incidence at 0,38%, while Mangwe, with a prevalence of 16,8%, and Umzingwane also remain significantly above the national average.
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