Sex for soap? A contextual approach for understanding young girls’ involvement in sex in Tanzania

ABSTRACT

Tanzania has made strides to end gender discrimination and sexual exploitation, yet, studies have found that these practices continue. One distinct form of exploitation is transactional sex. Girls agree to sex – often with older men known as “sugar-daddies” – in exchange for basic needs like breakfast or soap, something that other researchers have written about it with concern. Herein, I provide an overview of the published research and then discuss my research on this issue, based on interviews with women and participant observation with girls in a remote part of Tanzania. My intention was to discover if and how girls are taken advantage of, discriminated against, or solicited for sex in and around schools. Transactional sex, a practice sometimes encouraged by family members, emerged as a pertinent theme. Ultimately, I focus on strategies for prevention using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model to consider interventions at multiple levels of these girls’ lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Transactional sex
• schoolgirls
• Tanzania
• gender discrimination