‘Sex-for-fish’: Rural Zambian women forced into coercive deals as drought and aid cuts bite
08.03.2025 - 06:33
/ euronews.com
/ Craig Saueurs
In Zambia’s drought-stricken fishing camps, the price for using a boat isn’t always paid in money.
As more women turn to the fishing trade as a means for survival, many are being forced into exploitative “sex-for-fish” arrangements – a troubling trend exacerbated by the sudden withdrawal of foreign aid from the United States.
A new report from the NGO ActionAid highlights the growing vulnerability of women to gender-based violence. It underscores how prolonged droughts have forced many Zambian women to seek alternative livelihoods, leaving them increasingly exposed to coercion and abuse in an industry defined by power imbalances and limited options.
Zambia is on the frontlines of the climate crisis.
Last year, severe droughts put more than six million Zambians from farming families at risk of acute food shortages and malnutrition. Half of the country’s farmlands faced total crop failure, leading the government to declare a national disaster and emergency.
As Zambia experiences increasingly severe droughts like these, rural communities are struggling to adapt. Water shortages and failed harvests have intensified food insecurity, pushing many women into informal fishing to survive.
One woman named Martha* detailed the dangers women like her face because of it.
Martha owns a net but not a boat so she cannot go out on the water herself. Instead, she relies on fishermen to get the day’s catch. But they don’t ask for money in return.
“They demand sex in exchange for cheaper fish,” she told ActionAid.
Another woman, Palekelo*, who turned to fishing when her farm dried up, also experienced similar demands. “The fisherman told me I could come with my money but if I didn’t pass by his house to spend the night, I was not going to get any fish,” she explained.
Zambia has one of the highest rates of reported gender-based violence in the world. More than a third of women and girls in the country have experienced physical violence in their lives, according to the UN.
Humanitarian groups have worked to address these and other issues for decades. ActionAid, for example, has had a presence in the country since 1996.
Since 2023, ActionAid’s USAID-supported initiative worked to mitigate gender-based violence through community-led women’s watch groups, safe houses and awareness campaigns that helped to report abuses and provide support services.
The United States’ decision to slash foreign aid – compounded by steep reductions in funding from the UK and European countries – has forced the programme to close at an inflection point.
The ongoing drought could cause 5.8 million people, or about a third of the population, to face high levels of food insecurity, according to independent data provider ACAPS.
Meanwhile, more than 42,000 cases