To browse Academia. This study investigated motivations for prostitution among female students in an institution of higher learning in Zimbabwe. The main purpose was to capture reasons why some female students engage in prostitution in the face of immense challenges of the risk of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases and the deadly HIV and AIDS virus. A prostitute in the traditional African culture and the current Zimbabwean society is not only viewed with a lot of suspicion, but is regarded as immoral and a social deviant and misfit, yet prostitution is dramatically on the increase in institutions of higher learning in Zimbabwe.
This therefore calls for a thorough interrogation of the motives behind prostitution by female students. Using structured interviews and open and close ended questionnaires and focus group discussions, female students and 30 male students were identified through purposeful, non random sampling process in an institution of higher learning.
The study was taken in the peri Background Despite its criminalization in Ghana, prostitution dates back to ancient societies and occurs in various forms within communities. The authors examined prostitution in selected public Universities in Ghana. Methods The study was an exploratory- mixed-method design. Respondents were identified using purposive and snowballing techniques whiles semi-structure questionnaires and in-depth interviews were used for data collection between and Quantitative data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 23 and qualitative data analyzed thematically.
ResultsFindings show that there is a proliferation of prostitution on university campuses in Ghana for financial, material and emotional gains. Student prostitutes have devised various strategies to combine academic work and prostitution. The paper problematicises the reasons why the street girls of the Harare Central Business District enter or engage in transactional or commercial sex work.
Drawing from a child agency theory, street girls demonstrated their agency through trading in commercial sex work. The entry of street girls into commercial sex work also constitutes ambiguity of agency.
