Online Reporter
Beatrice Tonhodzayi in ENGLAND
WHEN the Certificate of Sponsorship (COS) for the United Kingdom came into effect, it was met with plenty of excitement by many Zimbabweans.
The COS is a document that proves that a licenced UK employer has offered a job to a suitable and genuine migrant.
Many Zimbabwean women and men jumped at the prospect of what they believed would be a better life in the UK.
Nurse aid courses were done, TB tests were swiftly conducted and English tests taken while large amounts of money were raised so that people could fly to the UK.
Some of those already based in the UK worked hard to facilitate some of these large payments to pay for their siblings to join them.
Some families and couples parted with property and assets to pay for these certificates.
Despite the UK Government not charging for a COS, it is a public secret that many people have had to part with thousands of dollars to get these certificates.
Some of those who have been licensed to give a COS have been running very lucrative side deals where they have dished out these certificates in exchange of thousands of dollars to desperate folks.
But, has it really been as rosy as many dreamt?
While some have used the COS to get into the UK and bring their families along and are grateful to be able to work and afford housing and food, others have found the going tough.
They are now complaining at the high cost of living, which they had not anticipated, and they are not earning enough to foot all their bills.
Dreams of buying houses and living lives, which they had seen those who entered the UK many years ago living, are fast going up in smoke.
Winnet Mushaninga told The Guardian newspaper in February that she lived with seven other women in a two-bedroom house in Leeds and worked from 7am until 8pm for low wages that didn’t even cover her rent.
At least, she found a job.
Some even came into the UK only to find that the jobs they had been promised were non-existent.
Some marriages have come under a lot of strain with many husbands, who followed their wives who got the COS first and brought those husbands and children as dependents, failing to cope with the new order of things.
Many wives constantly remind them that they “brought them to the land of milk and honey.”
But, is the UK really the land of milk and honey?
Some women found themselves at the mercy of men with houses and money (at times the COS dealers) and entered into adulterous affairs before their husbands joined them.
Others probably just go drunk with the freedom and strayed off line.
For the single women, a ready market of men – married, committed or single – who had long been starved of some ‘home meat,’ as it is called on these streets, awaited them.
And all hell has been breaking loose.
Some younger women from Zimbabwe have been engaging in affairs with men, who have a bit of cash to spend, but are old enough to be their fathers.
In a flash, the sugar daddy syndrome has been exported from Zimbabwe into England and destroying relationships in its wake.
“Once one lets their wife leave Zimbabwe without following immediately, that’s it because most of these women started having affairs with other people,” said a 40-year-old man, whom we shall call Ben because he asked for anonymity, from Bedford.
“We know so many of these women who came here who started sleeping with other men and by the time the husband followed, there was serious friction.
“The COS has just brought in new women into a place where people seem possessed by an anti-marriage spirit but otherwise the demon of cheating was already here.”
Sally, from Northampton, said:
“So many Zimbabwean men suddenly found themselves surrounded by these women who came on a COS and they lost it.
“They are having so many affairs with these women who will do anything to get help with accommodation and their upkeep so our marriages are in trouble.”
She has been married for 30 years and she recently found out her husband, who is HIV positive, has been having an affair with a woman who recently came on a COS.
Another man, who came here some months after his wife, told me that if married couples wanted their relationships to survive; they should not take too long before they joined each other.
After coming from Zimbabwe, where men are used to mostly leaving domestic chores to the women, some of the men are now struggling to cope with life in the UK.
Here everyone has to play their part in the home, including cleaning, cooking and child care.
Some couples find themselves having to deal with an arrangement where the husband usually comes home when the wife is leaving for work or vice versa.
This has been causing friction among many couples.
And, when they struggle to juggle their finances, many of them end up wondering why they sold their assets back home, or borrowed heavily, for them to come here.
“I know men who are struggling because the woman came first and is always reminding them how she brought them here and how they must be grateful.
“For some people, the jobs that they are doing now are not as good as what they had back home and they are struggling here,” another Zimbabwean said.
A woman called Ropa, who is here with her husband and two children, said:
“We have seen people change before our very eyes.
“Some behave like sex workers and all they are looking for is a man with some money.
“It is almost as if there is a territorial spirit out to wreck relationships that has gripped the Zimbabwean community in the UK at a time we should be celebrating that many more people can now come and work for their families.”
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