Growing up in the mining town of Shamva Trish Gore (15)* was poised for a great future had it not been that nature knocked at her parents’ door when they perished in a horrific road traffic accident when she was only ten.
By Elia Ntali
Due to lack of proper counselling and parental care, she finds herself in the oldest profession, prostitution not by choice but as a result of the challenges that she has endured when she was staying at a relative’s house.
Trish was subjected to abuse, torture and was made to drop out of school, this because she was a girl. The experience was just hell as she narrates.
“I was staying with my Uncle when all of a sudden his wife decided that I should not continue with education as there were boys who deserved to be sent to school and from there I was subjected to physical abuses” said the sobbing Trish
She was even told to get married as compensation to her education a move in itself that violates her right to education.
At the age of twelve, she found herself working as a maid in Bindura however; life was not that rosy as she was sexually abused by her employer.
“I went to work as a housemaid in Bindura but my employer’s husband raped before threatening me with death and I had to flee after the wife accused me of fabricating”
“It was a difficult time for me as I could not return to my uncle’s house as he accused me of being lazy and word had spread around the people who could have assisted me, that I was naughty” said Trish.
It was then that she worked at a shebeen in Shamva that she found ‘refugee’ and within a short space of time she was engaged in prostitution and she is now a patron at most night clubs in at the town’s popular business centre Wadzanai.
On October 16, Shamva joined the rest of the world in belated celebrations to observe the International Day of the Girl-Child, at a function hosted by Real open Opportunities for Transformation Support (ROOTS) where issues to do with challenges that assail the development and progress of the girl child are highlighted.
It is a day where various measures and ways to curb challenges such as early or forced marriages are discussed; it is also a day where programmes that tackle challenges may be pursued.
The girl-child is prejudiced by virtue of sex and in most patriarchal communities; there is an in-built discrimination against women due to religious, traditional and societal structures.
What has become a head ache to most Governments in Africa and other developing nations, is the issue of early or forced marriages which is mainly skewed against the girl child.
Issues of sexual harassment can not be left out of this matrix as the vulnerable young girl in Mutasa, Nembudziya, Mubaira and other distant places are engulfed with abuses that are accompanied by death threats from perpetrators.
As a result of these abuses unwanted pregnancies, abortions are the order of the day leading to termination of her education pursuit. Due to severe poverty in some rural families the girl child is forced to go and work as a housemaid so as to raise money to educate and feed her siblings.
Traditional beliefs in the past have made it normal that a female child should not be educated as she will “start her own home”.
Furthermore traditional beliefs obstruct the girl child’s education from the fact that girls do not carry family names like their male counterparts and even if circumstances show that the girls have the potential to make it in their academics, their lives are messed.
Teenage pregnancy is an issue that stands in the way of the girl child and in most cases their dreams are shattered as they are not given a chance to continue with their education, even when there is potential.
It is important to guarantee that girls and young women are able to partake actively, similarly and efficiently with boys and young men at all stages in social, educational, economic and political platforms.
An all encompassing campaign that includes traditional leaders, lobby groups, parents, schools and government must be carried to eliminate discrimination against girls and young women and to ensure their full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms through comprehensive policies, plans of action and programmes on the basis of equality.
The country must pay more attention to gender mainstreaming in such key areas as education, health and employment.
Guaranteeing equal access to and completion of vocational, secondary and higher education in order to effectively address the existing inequality between young men and women in certain professions is significant.
Traditional beliefs and practices that hold back the progress of girls in society must be scrapped.
