Feature of the Week

Flip side of railway project

Hundreds of people have relocated to the project areas
Hundreds of people have relocated to the project areas

The ongoing construction of the $1 billion [about K420 billion] railway line passing through Chikhwawa, Neno, Mwanza and Balaka might not be just about hauling mounds of coal from Vale’s mines in Moatize on the one side of Mozambique to the deep port of Nacala on the other. The government says it will cut by 30 percent the cost of transporting imports and exports, fast-forward rehabilitation of the landlocked country’s railway connecting to Nacala and bring billions of kwacha in form of commissions. However, communities surrounding the project feel the influx of people to work on the project has increased the incidence of risky sexual encounters. JAMES CHAVULA writes.

 

Times are no longer rough for 26-year-old Amanda who rents a room at Zalewa in Neno with other sex workers. She now deals with up to seven men a night and goes home with about K25 000 (US$62.5) when she hooks one of the numerous Mozambicans, South Africans, Portuguese and Thais who are constructing a railway  because the Tete-Beira line cannot cope with the coal production at Moatize in Mozambique.

Until January this year, Amanda was plying  her trade up and down various pubs in Lunzu, Kameza, Chirimba and other parts of Blantyre City which is losing its sex workers to Zalewa and other entertainment hubs near camps housing the migrant  workforce  on the Nacala Corridor Project being bankrolled by Brazilian mining firm, Vale.

The mother of two has hiked her charges due to increasing demand for transactional sex from the construction workers pouring in from abroad and various parts of the country.

“If I hadn’t relocated, I would have been wretched because most clients in the city have been complaining about the sluggish economy—the devaluation of the kwacha and rising cost of living,” said the tattooed sex worker.

For close to a year, Amanda has been grappling with competition from scores of girls and women from the vicinity and all corners of the country. Others have been employed as support staff—laundry attendants, hostel cleaners and waiters—at Mkwinda Campsite belonging to Vale’s subcontractor, Mota-Engil.

During a visit to Mkwinda, two sex workers who used to trade at Grand Grill, Chez Ntemba International, Ozone Refreshment Centre and other clubs in Blantyre were spotted working at the campsite. Asked how they ended up there, one of them was candid: “It all started with a sexual encounter with mzungu [white man] at Zalewa. The rest is history.”

At Mkwinda’s twin camp, Emvulo in Chikhwawa, workers revealed that in February, female employees were evicted from the enclosure because it was fast turning into a dangerous sex cobweb.

“Save for sporadic stock-outs, condoms are available in all hostels and the company gives us pep talk on sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV and Aids. However, transactional sexual relationships are inevitable and getting out of hand because the migrant workers have spent months far from their spouses and stable partners,” said Emvulo occupant Feston Khanyiwa.

Reigning over a village adjacent to Emvulo, Group Village Head Gadama expressed concern that the railway project will complicate the Aids situation in the area because no awareness and preventive campaigns are happening in communities near the camps and railway sites.

The traditional leader called on Vale and Mota Engil to invest in community awareness programmes, saying their migrant workers are living in the villages and some of them are in relationships with locals.

“Some time back, officials from Chithumba Health Centre and primary school approached me to warn my people because risky sexual tendencies and STIs have drastically increased, but it is the social responsibility of the construction companies to invest in community outreach programmes,” said Gadama.

A health worker at Chithumba Health Centre, who did not want to be identified, confirmed a sharp increase in STIs, but could not divulge the figures, saying the Ministry of Health stopped them from speaking to the media.

However, the chilling extent of the sexual undercurrents have popped out in Mwanza: Health centres reported nearly 50 percent increase in STIs cases in the past 12 months, indicates a study into the impact of development projects on public health carried out by Mwanza District Council.

Like at Zalewa, 46 kilometres away, bartenders and locals at Mwanza boma say the population of sex workers has gone up strikingly. Children are joining in. Some are relocating to villages near Emvulo. Others occupied a lodge for nearly two months—a first in 20 years of the hospitality business, according to proprietor of the lodge.

For about five months, Mota Engil has not responded to our questionnaire on the flip side of the mammoth construction project. Several reminders have yielded nothing.

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