Sex workers in their own words
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Friday September 5, 2014 14:51
The venue is President Hotel, the room – a dimly lit affair. No less than 100 people sit in stunned silence as a video glares showing one commercial sex worker, after another relate their life story.
The Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs, UNAIDS, NACA and Women Pillars in the Fight Against HIV and AIDS, are hosting media and other stakeholders for the inaugural screening of the “Voices of Female Sex Workers” documentary and booklet launch. The objective, officials says, is to put a human face on sex work and advocate for HIV and AIDS programmes responsive to their needs.
On the screen is Pelotshweu (not her real name) aged 23 who says her dreams were shattered after being raped by her stepfather and uncle. Pelotshweu narrates how her grandmother spurned her pleas for help and ignored her.
“It is just too traumatic to re-visit. The long and short of it is that I ended up being painted as the bad girl who liked older people so much that she wanted to sleep with her uncle,” she says. “Nobody believed me and instead everybody accused me of being promiscuous.” “I lost the virginity that I had kept for the man who would marry me. The lack of support from my family drove me to sex work, as I lost all hope in life.”
Pelotshweu later felt “polluted” and engaged in multi-concurrent relationships which produced a child. “I sold sell sex in exchange for money to maintain my child,” she says, as the audience blinks tears away.
Relatives shunned 24-year-old “Morobanyana” after her parents died from a car accident. At the time she was 17 years old and pregnant and as the first born, she inherited the responsibility of taking care of her three siblings as well. “After we lost our parents, our relatives who had promised to look after us during the funeral were nowhere to be found,” she recalls as the audience looks on silently.
“I could not bear to see my younger siblings and my baby looking at me helplessly while I could not offer them anything since I could not get a job in the village. “I decided to pack my bags, leave Marapong and go to Francistown to perhaps find a job that would take care of the little ones because government’s food basket was insufficient.” On arrival in Francistown, Morobanyana stayed with a friend who boasted that her own lifestyle was well-paying. Only later would the young newcomer find out her friend was actually a sex worker.
“After a few weeks, my friend asked me to join her in the business, saying she would kick me out if I did not. Even though I was reluctant at first, I ended up selling my body and I indeed made a lot of money, which enabled me to take care of my child and siblings.
“Like other children, they were able to go to school and lived well,” she said. Over and over the stories came out through the documentary. Stories of pain, hunger, abusive boyfriends, fear and abandonment all conniving to throw women into the sex trade.
Others share the trials of the trade, the intimidation, the violence, the “working conditions,” and the emotion, while owwwthers narrate how clients abandon them in far flung bushes, assault them and even steal from them.
“We cannot report because what we are also doing is illegal,” they say. Worse than the intimidation, violence and crime, is the HIV and AIDS attendant in sex work. Recent Ministry of Health studies have revealed an HIV prevalence rate of 70 percent among surveyed sex workers compared to 18.5 percent nationally.
Sex workers also have an HIV incidence rate of 13 percent, compared to 1.35 nationally. Prevalence speaks to the overall number of infected people, while incidence is the number of new cases annually. Twenty-four year old Beauty fell pregnant and also contracted HIV while on duty. On the screen in the small room at President Hotel, she narrates how she had sex without a condom with a certain client as this type of “transaction” attracts higher rates. “After we finished, I realised that he had a rash all over his body and boils around his manhood. “I think I was a bit drunk that night, but then again I think I was blinded by the money that he paid me. He gave me P600 and that was a lot of money.
“I slept with many clients without a condom and as a result I conceived and also contracted HIV as a bonus.” Fidzi, 35, says she is HIV positive but “as men can be so narrow at times”, they keep on insisting on sleeping with her without a condom. Many of them, she says, are married men. “Even though I tell them that I am HIV positive and that I am on treatment, they never believe me saying I don’t look sick,” she said. Gender Affairs Department director, Valencia Mogegeh, breaks the stunned silence after the documentary to say sex workers should be offered equal opportunity regarding protection and access to services. “This will mitigate stigma and discrimination and promote alternative means of survival,” she says.
“These stories are based on real life experiences of female sex workers based in Gaborone, Tlokweng, Francistown and Kasane.”