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Of buyers without names and tracking cattle rustlers
2007-07-25 08:51:01
By Deo Mfugale
`This trade is as old as mankind itself. There is no way anyone can stop it and, in our case, I think the government should legalize it.
It could earn some revenue after all,` commented one of the participants in the workshop.
There were about 20 journalists and media workers who had gathered to discuss issues about gender in general and gender mainstreaming in particular.
The subject was not new to most of us but after the first day of deliberations, it became apparent that many people did not understand it properly.
For example, there was this confusion about gender, meaning issues that are specifically related to women and girls. Issues that have nothing to do with men and boys.
However, in the course of the discussions that went on for three days, many of the participants had a different perspective of gender.
`But who told you that prostitution is the oldest profession in the world; have you conducted a research on that? I think this version was created by a man whose only aim was to despise women. This mindset has to change,` challenged another participant, a woman of course.
The debate that morning had centered on changudoa: what the term means and how the public understands it.
It was generally agreed that the term refers to women who sell their bodies for gain, otherwise known as commercial sex workers.
Almost everyone, men and women alike, were sceptical about using the term prostitute, malaya.
However there was a fierce debate about the male counterparts - what are they called? It would only be fair if these were also called changudoa because they are also in the profession, some had argued.
`If the girls are sex commodities then there are buyers for the goods. We don’t have a name for the buyers because they are men and these(men) do not want to associate themselves publicly with sin. We should also call them changudoa,` another participant argued.
Someone said that such men (boys) are called buzi, but several people said that it was not the appropriate name as it had no bearing with prostitution.
Failing to get an appropriate name for male prostitutes, the participants, most of whom were women, loathed the male chauvinism and blamed the attitude on culture, traditions and even religion.
A participant gave an example a photo from Indonesia which showed a girl receiving 100 strokes of the cane after she was allegedly found fornicating with her boyfriend. The caption also read that the girl would have to leave the city and settle elsewhere after receiving the lashes.
`Where was the boyfriend? Why wasn’t he punished?` she asked. No one could give a satisfactory answer.
The workshop which had been organized by Pact Tanzania and attracted participants from JET and MISA aimed at making leaders of the two oganisations understand the different gender concepts and increase their awareness and knowledge of gender issues in staffing and programming.
It was also meant to enable them to recognize the importance of gender mainstreaming and apply the same in their organizations.
During the workshop the participants also discussed gender and sex, gender division of labour, gender discrimination and women`s empowerment.
Other issues that featured strongly were equality and equity, women`s human rights and why gender issues are important for development.
At one time there was an interesting discussion on jobs for men and jobs for women. Is it true that women can do all `men`s jobs` and accomplish them? It was a heated discussion indeed as men attacked women for striving to be like men and so shunning their rightful place in the society that of keeping off their hands from the jobs meant for men (whoever designed them for men!).
On the other hand, women argued that biological differences apart, women can do all the jobs that men do and with equal or even better perfection.
A participant from the Northern part of Tanzania cited cases of cattle rustlers from a neighbouring village who steal their cattle from time to time and only men are called to upon to track and fight them.
`I have never seen women going after the rustlers. They stay home, look after children and milk the cows because that is their job. Fighting cattle rustlers is a man`s job, he explained, of course drawing protest from the women participants.
Some one asked if it is possible to take changudoa away from their job, if it is possible to convince them to earn a decent living.
Some participants said that it was not possible because some of them did it out of habit and not really because they were pressured by economic hardships.
Others said that it was possible because while they might earn a lot of money now because they are still young, they should think of the future when they get old.
`In fact they are not earning much money, wanararuriwa tu, they are just being destroyed and lefty at the mercy of the world,` explained a woman participant.
It was agreed, eventually, that the media should play a key role in trying to remove from the business women and girls who do it by force of circumstance.
However, the women participants were a bit sceptical - the media industry is dominated by men and they did not trust them to raise high the plight of changudoa.
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