Prisoners, fugitives of prostitution

By Addis Mulugeta

Senait Temesgen, 18, born in Shashemene, came to Addis Ababa four years ago because she had nothing to depend on when her parents passed away. After two years of sex work she finds out that she has the interest to be a bicyclist and against all odds she attempts to own a bicycle and a club to manage her.
She sat beside the trophies she won from fragmented sets of competitions and told Capital that bicycling, sex work at night and day shift witresing is hampering her training and dream to become a professional cyclist and be able to be hired permanently a club.
“My problem is that I don’t have my own bicycle and other materials necessary for the sport. While on competition, the Ethiopian Athletics Federation provides the bicycles that will be returned back after the competition, so I can not afford a bicycle on my 80 birr month salary and the on and off sex work; that will be spent on food, shelter and clothing,” she said
Luckily enough, Senait after four years of struggle for survival and vision for better life got a promise to end her misery. A non governmental organization, WISE UP has made a commitment to buy her all the necessary materials and find her a way out from sex work.
The Wise Up project is DKT Ethiopia’s unbranded condom promotion activity targeting sex workers and their clients to reduce HIV/STI prevalence because it is generally higher among and these groups which act as “bridging” populations for HIV/STI to the general population. It is funded and led strategically and technically by DKT. Its goals are to reduce the transmission of HIV / STIs by increasing condom use among sex workers and clients. Among the objectives of Wise Up are; increase the percentage of sex workers and clients who use condoms consistently and correctly, increase the percentage of venue owners, managers, and other gatekeepers who maintain consistent stocks of condoms, increase the percentage of venue owners, managers, and other gatekeepers who advocate correct and consistent condom use by sex workers and clients, increase the availability of condoms within or in immediate proximity to wise-up venue, finally increase the percentage of venue owners and other gatekeepers who advocate for non-violent and non-discrimination of sex workers in their work environments and as they seek services.
Selam Gebrie, also a sex worker, said that her daily life depends on the income she generates from sex work. Of course, she can work as a hairdresser at beauty saloons, but for women like her, it is not easy to find jobs.
“Governmental and non-governmental organizations have to take the responsibility of creating job opportunities for women like us. Not only by creating educational access but also job opportunitie,” Selam said.
The history of sex workers in Ethiopia dates back to 1935 during the time of the Italian invasion. Some books indicate that sex work started in Ethiopia when Italian soldiers slept with Ethiopia women. From that time onwards, the number of sex workers has risen from time to time in the countryside as well as urban cities and towns of Ethiopia.
Whether sex work is legal in Ethiopia or not is still questionable. However, people have the right to engage in sex work. Few countries of the globe allow sex work legally, excluding few like Ethiopia. There is no research that focuses on the number of sex workers in the country, so their exact number is not yet discovered. But they are generally divided into two; workers who already have established bases and street sex workers.
Sex workers are defined as individuals who receive money or goods in exchange for sexual intercourse. Most of them have “clients” of regular service members.
According to some street sex workers, it is better to work on the street because they get better payment than the ones who work inside bars and pubs. The ones that use the street as a base have no expense; of course they may pay for guys who provide them with protection from any kind of abuse or attack that they may encounter on the streets during the night. But those that are based in bars and pubs have to pay for the owner in one way or another. Some owners of bars and pubs demand half of the money the sex workers earned. And the other kind of payment to the owners is the one known “exit fee”, they pay a fixed price for going out with a “client” from the bar or pub of up to 25 birr.
Among the major problems that sex workers face are rape, mostly without protection, unusual sex rituals, beating, harassment, and will be forced to drink and smoke.
Sebele Shiferaw. a 12 grade graduate since1996 says she has faced many cruelties during sex work but continued in the business to feed her two children and pay for their school tuition fees. She says there nothing worse than being a prostitute, but she can not see any other means to make ends meet.
Most of these women have similar stories of how they started this business. Mostly it is unwanted detachment and loss of family.
Wise Up coordinator in DKT Ethiopia, Samrawit Araya, told Capital that Wise-Up has three primary means to delivering information to sex workers Outreach workers visit target venues once monthly to discuss HIV/STI, sexual health, condoms, and safe sex. Outreach workers are selected from targeted communities and are preferably former sex workers and/ or individual familiar with sex work. Peer education by trains sex workers in HIV/STI, sexual health, condoms, safe sex, and how to access health services. IEC/ promotion materials during all outreach visits, peer educators trainings, and recognition ceremonies and reinforce message about condom use.
She explained that about 600 sex workers got training on how to use condoms and save their lives from killer diseases, for about three consecutive years. There is a plan to cover about 42 towns in Ethiopia with similar education. The training focuses now on Addis Ababa and Shashemene for established base sex workers but it is difficult to collect and address the training to street sex workers