Sexual healing on the Kenyan Coast: Part 1

Posted on September 18th, 2012 by CORRESPONDENT

The world’s oldest
profession is changing
and finding strange new
bedfellows along the
Kenyan Coast

(Josaya Wasonga) – Tonight is not my night. The clubs are empty. I guess it’s because it’s a Thursday. I’m headed to a local joint that is a favourite amongst Diani residents. My guide, Ali, swears that Beach Road, Ukunda is a tourism hot spot because it’s chock-ablock with lodges, boutiques, cottages, nightspots… you name it – from chic to downright cheap and nasty, all meant to be tourist magnets.

I’m club-hopping, hoping for some action… ladies-of-the-night kind of action, to be precise. I’ve been reliably informed that the evening’s proceedings usually kick off just after 9PM when the disco at this airy venue gets going. Then matters move onto Shakatak, also on Beach Road. We passed it earlier, but it was still quiet. We also passed Tandoori, a makuti-style tavern and another hot spot. It was blaring African music and several scantily clad women were perched on bar stools. Ali confirmed my suspicions that they’re prostitutes, gearing up for their night’s work.

When we arrive, the disco is deserted, save for five or so ladies seated in different places nursing soft drinks and sizing us up as I order a Coke and settle into a worn-out makuti seat. I look out over the windswept beach as the moon peers out from behind a swirl of clouds.

In the Zone

The fact that there are only small numbers of women in this establishment is deceptive.
According to a recent survey by Solidarity with Women in Distress (SOLWODI) – a nongovernmental organisation that supports commercial sex workers and girls who are at risk, in the coastal towns of Mombasa, Kwale, Kilifi and Malindi – there are an estimated 4161 sex workers in Msambweni district, which is where Ukunda is located; 5.9% of females of child-bearing age (15-49 years of age).

SOLWODI has broken down the area into four zones: Zone 1 stretches from Tiwi Bridge to Corner ya Beach, upper side, and their attention is focussed on a place called Meat Zone. Zone 2 stretches from Tiwi Bridge to Corner ya Beach, lower side, and the places on this stretch are African Pot and Ushagoo. Zone 3 stretches from Beach Corner to Mvindeni, upper side, and here the ones on their radar are Masai, Starehe and Juhudi. Zone 4 stretches from Beach Corner to Mvindeni, lower side, where establishments such as tandoori, Shakatak, Manyatta, Kings Club, Willow, Rongai Weekend Pavilion and Famous are to be found.

The Digo are the original inhabitants of this area, but successive migrant communities and locals – people who have come to work in the hospitality industry and sex workers from upcountry among them – have turned this once sleepy town on the road to the Lunga Lunga border post, into a bustling pit stop for buyers and sellers of everything from flesh,  to fresh ocean air.

Stepping into the Gap

Martha Samuel, a 34-year-old mother of two, who now works as a volunteer with SOLWODI, turned to commercial sex work after jobs in the hotel industry evaporated as tourism was one of the hardest-hit industries in the wake of the violence that followed the general election of 2007. Originally from Nairobi, Martha used to be a waitress.

Sex tourism is a monster with many heads,
a dragon that cannot be slain in one fell swoop

“One night, some guys from Impact, a nongovernmental organisation, were trawling the pubs, looking for ladies to help. That was a turning point for me. They took us to seminars and provided us with training. I’m now trying to do the same for other women.”

Gabriel Mukhwana, another volunteer at the Diani location, says that they are inundated. Sex tourism is a monster with many heads, a dragon that cannot be slain in one fell swoop.

Issues such as human trafficking and forced marriages at a very early age (espoused by many locals) often thrust desperate victims into sex tourism.

“Around here, when a child gets pregnant, the first thing the parents want is for her to
get married. Sometimes she doesn’t even get married to the person who impregnated
her, but instead to an older man. Desperation soon sets in and next thing you know the girl finds herself in the red-light district,” Gabriel explains.

Parental Problems

The influx of women from as far as Kisumu, and even Uganda, keeps the engine of this industry going, but there is also a competitive edge to this trade.

Gabriel says when people notice children in their neighbourhood bringing home desirable items, usually purchased with proceeds from sex work, they start pushing their children to be like ‘so-and-so’, urging them to get what is euphemistically called a “sponsor”.

When confronted by situations where parents are the enablers, Martha and her colleagues are on thin ice. It’s not unusual for them to incur the wrath of these parents who think the volunteers are only out to slaughter their cash cows. As such there is a great deal of resistance to ending what has become a blight on Kenya’s once peaceful coast.

 “Sexual healing on the Kenyan Coast” continued tomorrow!

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