The unexplored side of Sex Work

“Sleeping with someone for money is what I do for a living, there is no element of shame or glorification, it is purely economics.” The words of Gloria Phiri (not her real name)

Gloria is a pretty 30 year old woman, tall and lanky with a body that in a perfect world would have been gracing the catwalks.

In a perfect world but it is not a perfect world as her sad eyes will tell you it is a world where a girl will complete high school and go straight into sex work.

Gloria says that for many sex workers, shame is not an option; it is something that fades after your third sexual encounter for money.

“I dropped out of school in grade nine at fifteen when I got pregnant by my then bus driver boyfriend, we were married for two years when he got severely sick and died;  living me with a baby girl.

I am an orphan and my husband was a Malawian so I had no one to look to for help, he had been sponsoring me in school and none of my late parents relatives were willing to take me or my baby in.

 She immediately opens up her purse and shows a picture of her daughter, eight year old Betty named after her late mother.

My husband’s cousin offered to take us in, she’s the one who slowly introduced me to the world of prostitution.”

Gloria says that she still recalls the first man she ever slept with for money; a truck driver passing through Zambia en-route to Congo.

She says he gave her 200 kwacha which she used to buy food and groceries.

“I was ashamed because it was such a cold encounter and I felt like everyone around me knew what I had done“.

“With the money I get I afford to pay for my daughters school fees, she’s very intelligent and dreams of been a Doctor, I want her to accomplish that dream, for her to never turn out like me.

I even have an account and I am saving money in case something happens to me.“ Gloria says with tears that speak volumes of determination.

Besides she says; “soon I will get too old to continue and by then the little house am building will be done and I will have raised enough for business.” She enthuses

“Ku savuka fye (you just have to become a savage)” declares Esnart who joins in the conversation.

“You cannot start been all emotional and romantic, it’s just sex that’s it, pure business!” she declares with a flick of her cigarette.

When you look at Esnart you are struck by how disassociated with life she looks, her eyes have a glazed angry look, cold, unemotional and piercing.

She says that she started when she was grade seven at fourteen merely because she wanted fast money.

“I went to a school with rich friends, my mother’s brother was paying for my schooling, but I wanted luxury. The first man was my teacher who slept with me in his office and gave me a 50 kwacha. ”

She says that she did not feel exploited at all because it is the nature of life and she says that been payed gives her a certain sense of power.

“Look here men will always exploit you so you might as well make money out of it. I don’t allow myself to engage in conversations with clients, I don’t let them caress me or kiss me.

That is emotional behaviour which is not safe because you might start getting attached to a client and seeing them as a potential boyfriend, they are not your friends or your lover they are a client who only want your body.” Esnart says that in a “good day she can sleep with over ten men”.

“I have some trusted big fish clients who call me and we go to a hotel at lunch or during working hours. Those I charge premium rates like 500 to 1000, because they are afraid of any commotion I can because they pay handsomely.”

 She adds however that sometimes when business is bad she can even accept a K50 as payment at which point Gloria pitches in and explains how the payment mode works.

“We have rates depending on the area and the client, for example we charge black foreigners differently from let’s say white guys or Asians because they have different needs.”

Esnart says some clients want oral sex, some want anal, while others are downright weird.

“A guy once picked me up and asked me to sleep with his dog, when I refused he almost beat me, I was lucky that we were negotiating near a filling station and that’s how I escaped. ” she says adding however that she has been raped countless times something she says is a job hazard.

“To tell you the truth, Zambian men, and some Asian ones can be extremely cruel they treat you like an animal unlike their foreign counterparts or white men.

That’s why sometimes some sex workers will refuse to go with an Asian man. ” she says as the other other ladies laugh

She says she had a brief stint in marriage to a man who was her former client; “He married me then he started insulting and abusing me after he had told me that he was okay with my former job. ”

It’s a statement that makes one wonder if there is ever any open 

door that the sex workers can use to leave the profession.

James Hansz is a male sex worker who is tall, built, and coupled with a dash of mixed race blood he cuts a dashing figure in tight leather pants with a tight t-shirt with “Am available” emblazed on it.

Born to a sex worker mother and a German father he says that life has never been kind to him.

“I first slept with this white guy for money, he payed me a lot of money and we dated for about three months before he left, due to the nature of my mothers work no relatives wanted me now she’s old and I have to support her.” He says in perfect English.

“I sleep with about five men in a day that’s the most I can handle and no it’s not just white guys or foreigners, even local Zambian men some of them married with families are my clients.” He says in perfect English

James inches closer as he tabulates how some of his clients are so called pillars of the community, elders in churches, Managing Directors and some very prominent people in society who he says hide behind their families and public homophobia.

“I make quite some money; I will tell you that, they are willing to pay a lot of money.”James says people who attack prostitutes are hypocrites because they wouldn’t be in operation if there were no clients.

When asked if they know their HIV/AIDS status only James answers and says that he goes for regular checkups but HIV/AIDS is not the only risk they face.

Medical Doctor and IPAS Zambia Project Manager Patrick Djemo says that based on scientific evidence shows that having  multiple sexual partners for both males and females  can cause a lot of health problems.

“People with multiple partners are considered as a specila population which more vulnerable to some specific health conditions that we may be worried about in people with one partner.”

Dr Djemo says outlining some of the conditions such a; “Cancer related genital diseases, sexually transmitted infections (gonorrhoea, Syphilis, Chancroid, Chlamydia) that can lead to infertility.”

He says that sexual intercourse is supposed to be an act undertaken at the culminant point of mutually felt feelings.

“For that to happen, it has be a voluntary and wanted act that two people will indulge in without coercion  or unrelated agenda other than love. “ he says

TASINTHA Programme Coordinator Clotilda Phiri says that the problem is that prostitution is a survival skill for many people.

When TASINTHA first started out in the 1990’s the youngest prostitutes we picked from the street where in their 20’s.

Ms Phiri however concedes that these days the ages are getting lower with the youngest girls been 12 to 13.

“Some of these girls are still in school when they start prostituting themselves, most of these girls parents died in the early 2000’s.

In the past the children we intervened in where usually 200 to 300, this has risen to about 600 high risk children. ”  She says

By high risk she means children whose probability of going into prostitution, this sponsorship is been done with support from Churches Health Association of Zambia (CHAZ) under the Global Fund.

Ms Phiri says that TASINTHA has had to revise its strategy because the old skills taught to reformed sex workers such as tailoring were not very profitable, so now they have also been teaching catering and carpentry.

Gloria, James and Esnart say that they have heard about TASINTHA with Esnart saying she once joined them but the thrill of fast money was too much to let go of.

 Sex work is still scandalized and the Police arrest sex workers at will despite it not been illegal yet if the stories I got while undercover are anything to go by it is a thriving profession. 

Meanwhile the streets of Addis Ababa and the brothels keep filling up with sex workers hoping to make a living.