Zimbabwean College Student Sex Workers

Zimbabweans have generally been more educated than their counterparts in other African countries. However, since the economy started collapsing in 2000, more people have been losing jobs, while tuition is still simulatenously rocketing due to high inflation. Professors in Zimbabwe have estimated that over 70 percent of their students cannot afford to pay for college [1].

AIDS prevention charity SHAPE Zimbabwe (Sustainability, Hope, Action, Prevention and Education) has released statistics that reveal that fiteen percent of female students at the University of Zimbabwe have participated in sex work, as well as twenty percent at Midlands State University and Chinhoyl University of Technology [1]. 

However, in this group, there are also well-off university students who are in sex work because they want to take part in conspicuous consumption.

In 'I just need to be flashy on campus’: female students and transactional sex at a university in Zimbabwe, Tsitsi Masvawure writes about sugar baby transactions among college students in Zimbabwe. Women often also have intimate personal relationships outside of sugar transactions, and therefore, express agency to make clear distinctions between sugar daddies and their boyfriends. They especially are careful in the kinds of relationships that they allow to develop, such as by avoiding sexual relations with sugar daddies. According to Masvawure, such relationships benefit both parties by allowing them to attain prestige; the babies earn more money to afford glamorous lifestyles and the daddies get the company of young educated arm candy [2].

[1] German, Erik. "Zimbabwe, a Falling Nation: Exposing the Plight of Prostitution to Pay Tuition." Erik German. Newsday. 17, December 2006. Web.

[2] Masvawure, T. (2010). ‘I just need to be flashy on campus’: Female students and transactional sex at a university in Zimbabwe. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 12(8), 857-870.