Transactional sex amongst young people in rural northern Tanzania: an ethnography of young women's motivations and negotiation

Abstract

BackgroundMaterial exchange for sex (transactional sex) may be important to sexual relationships and health in certain cultures, yet the motivations for transactional sex, its scale and consequences are still little understood. The aim of this paper is to examine young women's motivations to exchange sex for gifts or money, the way in which they negotiate transactional sex throughout their relationships, and the implications of these negotiations for the HIV epidemic.MethodAn ethnographic research design was used, with information collected primarily using participant observation and in-depth interviews in a rural community in North Western Tanzania. The qualitative approach was complemented by an innovative assisted self-completion questionnaire.FindingsTransactional sex underlay most non-marital relationships and was not, per se, perceived as immoral. However, women's motivations varied, for instance: escaping intense poverty, seeking beauty products or accumulating business capital. There was also strong pressure from peers to engage in transactional sex, in particular to consume like others and avoid ridicule for inadequate remuneration.Macro-level factors shaping transactional sex (e.g. economic, kinship and normative factors) overwhelmingly benefited men, but at a micro-level there were different dimensions of power, stemming from individual attributes and immediate circumstances, some of which benefited women. Young women actively used their sexuality as an economic resource, often entering into relationships primarily for economic gain.ConclusionTransactional sex is likely to increase the risk of HIV by providing a dynamic for partner change, making more affluent, higher risk men more desirable, and creating further barriers to condom use. Behavioural interventions should directly address how embedded transactional sex is in sexual culture.

‘A Girl Who Gets Pregnant or Spends the Night with a Man is No Longer a Girl’: Forced Marriage in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

“…This influences girls to sleep outside their homes with men. This concurs with the study conducted in Tanzania by Wamoyi et al (2010) where some parents accepted their daughters' transactional relationships, and also supported them if this helped maintain the household. Human Rights Watch (2002) and Maclin et al (2015) corroborate that the struggle to survive in eastern Congo has caused women and girls to exchange sex for food, shelter, or money in order to provide for themselves and their families.…”

Revisiting the economics of transactional sex: evidence from Tanzania

“…"Towards a political economy of research assistants: reflections from fieldwork conducted in Tanzania This expectation reflects similar findings in research by Wamoyi et al (2011Wamoyi et al ( , 2010 with young people and their parents, conducted in the same study site, in which parents noted that a girl's private parts are like a "shop"( "hayo ni maduka"). This expresses the view that nothing is obtained from a shop for free, and hence when applied to sex, women have to be given something in return for satisfying male sexual desires.…”

“…Expectations around exchange and casual and informal sexual relationships are also reported in other studies on transactional sex conducted in Tanzania (Maganja et al 2007). This phenomena has previously been reported in relation to younger women still at school, with gifts such as sugar cane, vitumbua, or sweets often received from older men as a means of pressuring them into sex (Wamoyi et al 2010). …”

“…Transactional sex also reflects the erosion of patriarchal relations to some extent (Wamoyi et al 2010), as men who want to have sex with women in non-marital situations are now in a position in which they are required to provide something. Other explanations of transactional sex emphasise the historical institutional roots of these practices, such as lubambo, which governs the legitimacy of extra-marital relationships in Zambia and which frames fish-for-sex transactions (Merten and Haller 2007).…”

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“…Culture helps form parental attitudes about how children should be disciplined. 20 Beliefs, religion and attitudes towards child upbringing among other things vary between different societies. In some communities, striking, slapping or shouting at children is a societal norm, so such practices usually occur, irrespective of parental education, age, or social status.…”