No to Bad Manners: Women Stand Up To Violence and Abuse

A bar and a block of rooms
FEBRUARY 2009 — The bar on the edge of the bustling market, beside the busy bus stop, always has customers. Its brown and cream walls are lit by two bulbs day and night. The outlying buildings are painted "tourist brown," the color of many cheap hotels and boarding houses around Livingstone, the tourist capital of Zambia. The constant music provides a soundtrack to the goings on. Young women lounge by the bar, while groups of men wander in and out looking uninterested, as deals are struck. Some men play pool outside, every so often venturing inside the bar. Occasionally, a woman peels herself from the group of women at the bar and heads for the door. Soon, a man follows. Beside the bar is a small block of eight single rooms occupied four to a room. Most of the women stay in their rooms during the day, and customers discreetly knock at their doors for an appointment.

The rooms mostly house women who have crossed the border from Zimbabwe in search of money to feed their children and families. Recently the number of Zambians from the Copperbelt Province and Lusaka has increased. A mapping exercise showed a population of 64 female sex workers living in the compound behind the bar. But this is a constantly changing group. The women from Zimbabwe usually get a two-week entry pass, and must cross the border again with whatever money they have saved from their sex work. Most are young women in their teens and early twenties. More recently, older women have begun joining the group, some in their late forties. "Times are hard," laments one of the older women. "If we don't do this, how will we feed our children or find medicine for them? There is no food, no medicine, nothing." Beside her is a young woman, clearly ill with a fever and stomach pains. Later, it emerges that she was beaten up by a customer the night before. The outreach worker gives her directions to the Corridors of Hope II (COH II) project office where she can have a checkup.

Reflection, resolution, change
COH II behavior change outreach workers are regular visitors to this bar and to the women who live there. Over the past year they have befriended the women, who were at first suspicious of their intentions, fearing they might have been law enforcement officers. Once they gained the women's trust, the staff has been meeting with the women about once a week and holding "Reflect discussions" in their rooms. The meetings help women raise issues of concern to them and make action plans to address them. Reflect is an approach to learning and social change. Key to the Reflect approach is "creating a space" where people feel comfortable to meet and discuss issues. Reflect aims to improve the meaningful participation of people in decisions that affect their lives, through strengthening their ability to communicate. At the heart of the methodology is the idea that individuals, groups, and communities, if given the space to speak, can identify the problems they face and the solutions. The more regularly the group meets the stronger the ties that bind them, and the stronger their resolve to change their lives. Reflect discussions use a variety of tools, each suited to bringing out particular problems and identify appropriate actions for change.

For the group of women who gather in one of the rooms each week, issues have included being forced to have sex without condoms; and beatings and gang rapes, especially of newer and younger women. As a result of the Reflect discussions, the group decided on one action plan to receive safer sex training. The training included demonstration of correct use of female and male condoms, negotiation of safer sex with clients, and an overview of HIV transmission routes. The women are now refusing to accept sex without condoms. As one woman explained, "The days when we used to be that foolish are gone. This time we know better. The ones who are difficult are the new girls because they think they are more marketable than us."

Supporting each other
The Reflect discussions are often conducted by the women themselves. They have formed a support group to help each other keep safe from violent clients. They have also approached the police department to discuss how cases of violence they report can be dealt with according to the law. This has been a great achievement, as the women had been afraid to go to the police for fear of intimidation. As one woman commented recently, "We now feel like we are doing something about our problems. Even the men know we are not going to accept their bad manners anymore." Another pointed to the others and said, "If you can't talk to the police, tell me, and I will talk to them on your behalf, because what these men are doing is wrong."

     "The men know we are not
     going to accept their
     bad manners anymore."

A new development is that the men hanging around the bar also know that the COH II outreach workers come to talk to the women. Sometimes, as the team approaches, the men shout out "Yes, you should teach them" from their vantage points. COH outreach workers have begun to hold discussions with the men to help increase their own risk perception. The bar itself is now a COH II condom outlet that is stocked with free condoms, female and male. Some of the women have started stocking socially marketed condoms for sale to their friends. This has become a popular venture. COH II helps them increase their market to women in the neighborhood, training them on condom efficacy.

About Corridors of Hope II
FHI is the primary implementing partner in Corridors of Hope II, a three-year program managed by RTI and funded by PEPFAR through USAID. FHI supports the Zambia Health Education and Communication Trust (ZHECT) to implement COH II in Livingstone.

Through messages to over 780,000 individuals from 2007 through 2008, COH II helped people identify behaviors that put them at risk for HIV. The program also provided STI screening and management as well as HIV counseling and testing to over 38,000 men and women.

PHOTO: A Corridors of Hope outreach worker teaches women how to use a female condom. (FHI/Zambia)