The hard life of streetwalkers

A few weeks ago, a Swiss national  and 11 sex workers caught the attention of the media when they were allegedly caught pants down by police shooting an adult video with a dog.

Kenyan police walked in on them with the Swiss pensioner behind the camera as the 11 women, many of them students at a college in Mombasa, engaged the German shepherd.

 The case has since made it to the Kenyan courts and the case is on-going.  Whether this allegation is proven in the court of law or not remains to be seen, but it has definitely left many who heard about it wondering and asking themselves, just how far commercial sex workers would go for money.

It is evident that with globalisation and the free flow of information and the de-regularised media, our morals have gone to the dogs, figuratively speaking. But this story that happened in Mombasa, whether true or false, shows the new low that our collective morals have reached.

Tanzania shares a long history with Kenya pre-dating the slave trade era. Our cultures are so intertwined and with the rebirth of the East African Community that promises the free flow of people, goods and services between these two neighbours, our experiences are bound to be similar.

We are left asking ourselves if such a case is said to have happened in the neighbouring country, how much different could it be from our own? How far are the sex workers in Tanzania willing to go for money?

Morally, socially and culturally it may mean different things to different societies, but it is generally understood that prostitution is; engaging in the sexual activity with another person in exchange for compensation, such as money or other valuable goods.

Prostitution is illegal in Tanzania, but it is nonetheless widely practised. Many women enter this age old profession due to a myriad of reasons, chief among them being poverty, lack of employment opportunities, abusive childhoods and most recently pleasure and the promise of easy money.

Dialogue with the women at the heart of this business is quite a daunting task. For them time is literally money and any attempt to strike a conversation with them that is not ‘business-related’ is considered a waste of valuable money-making time.

One is forced to part with some money or an offer of drinks for them to talk about their trade. It was therefore after providing some form of compensation and promising to use only their business aliases that I managed to get some insight into this trade.

Baby, a 22-year-old college student got into this trade simply for the allure of pleasure and easy money. From a well-to-do family, Baby who plies her trade along Shekilango Road, in Sinza Dar es Salaam was lured into the trade by a fellow student slightly over a year ago and she quickly got hooked.

Asked what she would be willing to do if given an acceptable sum of money, Baby says that she is ready to do anything, absolutely anything, for the satisfaction of her clients without even a flick of the eyelid. Relatively new in the job, having been practising for the past one year, Baby reckons that she has met all types of men with all sorts of fetishes and most of these customers believe that they can get all their sexual desires satisfied as long as they have the money to pay for it.

To Baby and most of her colleagues, they are willing to go to any lengths to satisfy their customers’ needs and fantasies as long as the pay is acceptable, and they do not come into physical harm.

On a slow night Baby takes home, or to her hostel room, about Sh20, 000.  The prices for her services are negotiable though she says the minimum she charges is Sh5, 000. She has however, never been asked by any of her clients to perform any crazy acts. Her take on the business is corroborated by Khadija who operates a small guest house at Masenze, which is frequented by patrons seeking quick fixes for their thirsts accompanied by commercial sex workers.

She says that most of the commercial sex workers who frequent her joint would be willing to perform whatever their customers wanted. Pendo has a slightly different view on the matter. Plying her trade at a popular night spot in Sinza, Pendo insists that despite her dire need for money, there are lengths she wouldn’t go to.

“I have been in this business for over seven years and I know the psychology of men. I’m always prepared to rebuff any unacceptable demands from my clients, but at the same time doing it ever so gently as not to hurt their egos as I will still need them at a later date,” she says.

Like all businesses, she says that it is important to have a list of trusted clients who she can always count on for business, but at the same time seeking new customers.

“How far a sex worker would go for money will be informed by a number of factors, but especially how badly in need of money the woman is,” states Mrs Hassan, a student counsellor at a Dar es Salaam college.

She says that most sex workers would be willing to do things that would have been considered unacceptable a few years ago, giving the example of anal sex that is now a common practice among the prostitutes. Normally charged at a higher rate than conventional sex, it is a practise that is now among their services and would mention it when approached by a prospective customer.

She doesn’t put it beyond them to be willing to perform sexual acts even with animals, as it happened in Mombasa, if the money they consider satisfactory is provided.

“They will hold on to some level of moral standards and even spell out their boundaries to their customers within the first few months of joining the trade. As soon as they get accustomed to the trade and experience different men with different demands some bordering on the bizarre, they soon throw out of the window the little morals they were holding to,” Mrs Hassan adds.

 “It is not always our choice what we do for the clients,” says a rather shy Nina who works as a sex worker at a night club within the city centre. She says that the customers would negotiate for a normal sexual service, but once they got to the customers hotel room or house, things would change.

“Some insist on weird sexual acts and even turn violent if a sex worker does not oblige. In her three years’ experience in the trade, the most dangerous are the ones who would come in pairs to pick up the girls. Nina says that given a choice, even with the allure of good money, there are lengths she wouldn’t go to sexually, simply because a customer demands.

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