I don't know what's wrong at your end, but I did a very basic test build on a "plain" TC 3.7.1 system:
tce-load -wi compiletc gtk2-dev vte-dev
tar xf stjerm-0.14.tar.xz
cd stjerm-0.14/
./configure
make
sudo make install
All this went through without an issue. I did not test it, as I don't know what to do with it, but at least it build and installed without any complaint.
So check that all your extensions are up-to-date. I only required those three (plus their dependencies) to build, and I'd imagine the run-time dependencies are (without having it checked myself): 'gtk2.tcz' and 'vte.tcz'.