Poverty and sex work

Here's a story that has shcked the world... Poverty is one of the most devastating problems that has affilcted humanity over the years. That's why there is need for concerted efforts in poverty alleviation.

Here goes the story..

There are basically four factors that push a person into to commercial sex work – poverty, human trafficking, drugs and easy access to good money. Poverty is the most prominent of them.

Two years back when I was working with WHO in one of the South East Asian countries I happened to visit one street based sex work site located in one of the prime cities of the country. I met a couple in that site.

The husband takes his wife on his bike to drop there everyday. He waits till she completes the dealing with her clients and takes them (generally3-4 clients/per night) to the near by hotel or lodge. After the sex work is over the husband picks up the wife from the notified place and gets her back home. This becomes their routine on all the seven days of the week.

I couldn’t stop asking the man how he looked into the profession of his wife. He answered, “We have no other option left for a descent livelihood. I work as a contractual labor and my income is far from being sufficient to make both ends meat with two school going children to support. So my wife gets into earning as well. She has also minimum education like me. Who will give us a good job, tell me? So I help her as much as possible to do her sex business smoothly. I accompany her at the streets to protect her from police and bad people. They are so troublesome in this business. Many a time I have to handle her unruly and rough clients.”

I asked him about the safe sex practices of his wife with the clients. He replied that his wife has sex with condom with every client. “We never allow the clients to go for unprotected pleasure. We don’t bother if she loses some clients in the process. We are well aware of the bad diseases.”

The man often felt dejected and frustrated to see his wife earning money through sex work. “Sometimes I feel like looting a bank to gather sufficient money so that she can stop sex work. But committing a crime can easily put you into the jail and then who will take care of your family. At least sex work is safe in that regards irrespective of police harassment”.

“How do you protect her from the police in the street?” I questioned.

The man said initially they faced lot of problems. Many a times the cops misinterpreted him as her client and troubled them a lot. Now they have made a kind of patch up with the local police station by paying them monthly ‘tax’ to run the business. “We have to give a lot to the police. They are so hungry for money”.

Like this many women in this world are regularly being dragged into sex work just because their husbands have not enough earnings to feed the family and recommend their wives with a heavy heart and sinful soul.

From public health point of view we should be happy if such couples are well aware of STIs and HIV/AIDS and the wives practice safe sex consistently with their clients.

But how can I forget that I am also a husband and father of a school going kid and I am lucky enough not to face the truth of life so nakedly like the man I had met on that day.

A deep sense of sorrow tore my heart apart, especially for the man who was helplessly and silently tolerating her wife’s sleeping with many men just because they badly needed the good money to give their children a better life.

Poverty is such a disgrace and shame in the ocean of humanity and we are simply helpless to bring a change in it irrespective of having many strategies and programs to alleviate poverty.

Are you listening my dear friends?

This story was posted by Dr Sugata Mukhopadhyay, New Delhi in India recently.

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