STREETS AHEAD CHILDREN'S CENTER ASSOCIATION - TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE FOR THE MOST VULNERABLE: RWANDAN SEX WORKERS.

This year, in the #16DaysOfActivism campaign, the UN Secretary General, Antonio Gutteres has called upon us to UNITE! and FUND, RESPOND, PREVENT & COLLECT! In creating a pathway to achieve this must be the centralization of Community Driven Organizations as the first responders to GBV survivors. Community Driven Organizations play a vital role in community interventions. They are frontline in holding perpetrators to account and in pushing family (mainly parents) to have courage in protecting their loved ones. In Africa, cultural issues many a times interfere in acquiring justice for GBV victims. Instances in Kenya have shown one member of the family could makes a formal complaint with the authorities and other members provide the family`s land as surety for the perpetrator to access bond, be free and return to the same environment as the survivor. Community Driven Organizations are many times the only safe haven for those who have experienced Gender Based Violence and the families that choose to believe them and stand with them.

Deep in Eastern Province in Rwanda, lies a small town that carries the intersection of 3 major roads called Kayonza. The roads come from Tanzania, Uganda and Kigali and are major highways for truck drivers who transport goods across the countries. The truck business is vital to the economic growth of the region especially for some girls and women who have found economic refuge in practicing as sex workers in Kayonza town.

Business was booming up until the COVID-19 pandemic hit. All of a sudden, there were no more trucks, no more cross-country trade. These were measures instituted by government to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. Government directives dictated that trucks from other counties were accompanied by law enforcement officers up to their destinations. |This meant no more stopovers in small towns like Kayonza. This meant no more income for sex workers in the area.

Sex workers experience a myriad of issues in their trade. Many times, they experience Gender Based Violence, Sexual Gender Based Violence and emotional and psychological torture from their customers. A typical sex worker in Kayonza has a 50% chance of being infected with HIV.[1] They have no say over whether the customer should wear a condom or not. Adamantly insisting on it may warrant her a thorough beating leaving her bruised and out of work for a week or more and more expenses on medication if necessary, as many self-isolate and heal slowly as medication is expensive. Due to the anticipated loss of income, many sex workers try as much as possible to avoid a confrontational situation. This makes them accept sexual practices that they are not comfortable with but cannot speak out. There are many other harrowing stories of violence and unpaid work after service and unplanned pregnancies but most importantly is what are we going to do about it to change the narrative.

SACCA Rwanda – The Streets Ahead Children’s Center Association is one such organization leading the way in non-discriminatory approaches to helping better the lives of sex workers who are victims of GBV & SGBV. They provide psychological and psychosocial support in transitioning sex workers from the abuse they experience to different forms of trade that maintain their sanity and preserve their mental health. After a lot of counselling at the SACCA rehabilitation center, they embark on equipping them with business skills. Valentine Mukamuyezi, SACCA`s Executive Director beams when she boasts of impacting 425 sex workers to date since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The beneficiaries attend sessions of counseling, training in managing and responding to Gender Based Violence, family planning, STDs, entrepreneurship sessions. Some women got to be supported by SACCA to start businesses that will hopefully enable them to earn an income replacing their former trade.

In line with the global call to fund response to GBV and prevent GBV from occurring, we need to have a global call to action to centralize the role of Community Drive Organizations like SACCA in fighting instances of GBV. Women and Girls who have experienced GBV face an insurmountable myriad of challenges to have their day in court and achieve justice. They many times do not have the emotional capacity to deal with the bureaucracy of the justice corridors.

Community Driven Organizations understand the setting of the crime, the reach of the perpetrators and the circumstances of the victim. We urgently need to FLIP the top-down approach in funding mechanism to better protect our girls sometimes, even from their parents. We can do this by implementing un-restricted funding to Community Driven Organizations as first responders, creating an army of legal assistants/ lawyers that can specifically help litigate GBV cases and lastly making it mandatory for governments to institute one stop centers as in Rwanda, for those who have experienced GBV where they can be treated, report and get their assault documented all under one roof.

The fight against GBV has been long and hard and by all means we are not there yet. There is a lot of push-back, victim blaming and justification for it that is perpetuated by patriarchy. The bigger question beyond the law, is how to influence the societal narrative to render this horrible practice unacceptable in any situation. This reverts us firmly to Community Driven Organizations like SACCA in Rwanda to lead the charge in re-framing societal narrative. In educating the populace using culture known to them by people known to them. For the year 2020, let us join hands in fronting Community Driven Organizations, recognizing their pertinent role in stopping this vice and once and for all directing unrestricted funding to them, where it is needed the most.

[1] Female sex workers in Kigali, Rwanda: a key population at risk of HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and unplanned pregnancy by Rosine Ingabire, Rachel Parker, Julien Nyombayire