It pays to be a girl of the night, says prostitute

It’s past seven in the evening. People are seen crowding around food stalls and wooden tables where marine species like octopus and prawns are the most sought after delicacies.

The unpleasant noise of Buguruni area is a sight to behold, where small businessmen are still making a killing even after sunset.

It is at this place where you will enjoy a plate of rice and beans at just Sh 1, 000 and walk home with a polythene bag full of potatoes and tomatoes at Sh 1, 500.

Life is so easy in this busy suburb that some residents of Dar es Salaam see no point in going to Kariakoo while they can shop and carry in Buguruni.

But there is more to shop and carry in Buguruni.

As the night progresses more customers- all male-sit in red and white plastic chairs at a nearby bar, sipping beer while waiting for the night to pick up.

A girl in a white sequence miniskirt dances in front of an old busted vending machine.

She is extremely young appearing no more than 16 years old. She and the other girls laugh while chasing each other around the outdoor bar.

This image of childhood innocence is corrupted and made almost surreal by the reality of their lives; by the fact that they are on the job, selling their bodies at a brothel in kwa Kimboka, Buguruni.

The girls begin to work, using the wooden poles as impromptu dancing poles. One girl quietly leads a man to a table, some sort of transaction happens between the two of them and another man sitting next to the table. They soon disappear into one of the rooms surrounding the compound.

Working all night

The manager of the establishment, *Rosa, tells me that the man at the table is a cashier and in order for the girls to use the rooms with their clients, they need to pay Sh 2,000.

The table also has several red condom packets scattered on it. Those cost about Sh 200 each. The girls are encouraged to purchase the condoms, but when I ask Rosa what happens when a client refuses to buy one, she says she doesn’t get involved.

“They can get anywhere from Sh 3,000 to Sh 15,000 per client, it’s up to them how they negotiate. They pay Sh 2,000 for the room and keep the rest of the money. They are malaya (prostitutes), do you know what a malaya is?” she asks me.

Rosa hates her job and wants out soon. Like the girls who work here, she came to Dar es Salaam in search of opportunity. She arrived in the city from Tanga a few months ago and managed to get a job as the manager of the pub which is actually a brothel soon after.

“ You’ll find that many of them have run away from home, many come from surrounding regions like Tabora. They leave their families there and come to Dar to look for money,” Rosa says.

Many of the girls work all night everyday of the week and sleep during the day. They live in the Buguruni area and rent small rooms which many of them share.

One of these girls is 18 year-old Kulthum who lives in Buguruni kwa Mnyamani. Kulthum has been working as a prostitute for several years now and sees the act of selling her body as being a job like any other. She is not worried about the dangers that many of us would assume would be plaguing her and is grateful to have a means to earn a living. “I’m able to take care of my family and I can afford to feed my child and take him to school,” she says.

In search of a decent life

Originally from Iringa, Kulthum left her family at a young age and came to the city in search of a decent income. She left her four-year-old boy back in Iringa. “I’m not worried about anything, I have my people here and we take care of each other. I am friends with some of the other girls as well, sometimes we will fight and have disagreements but at the end of the day each one is doing their own thing,” she explains.

Before becoming a prostitute, Kulthum was as a domestic worker. “This woman brought me to Dar es Salaam and promised to help me get a job as a house girl. I got a job, but as the months went by, I was working in a house but they were not paying me. So I went back to that lady and she told me that there are other opportunities to get money and told me about this place where I could make good money. From then onwards I have been working here,” Kulthum recalls.

Kulthum refuses to complain about any problems she might be facing. When asked whether she uses protections at all times, she says that some men use condoms while others refuse. “When they refuse I still go ahead with my business, I can’t afford to say no because the man doesn’t want to buy a condom,” she says. She will also not speak about the police.

Ilala Regional Police Commander, Marietha Mnangi, says that the police have more than once conducted several crackdowns and arrested the proprietors of brothels in the area. “But we are shocked to see them walking scot-free and resuming their businesses within a matter of days,” she says.

Rosa says that the police will often come to her brothel and arrest some girls but what they will really be after is the Sh 50,000 bail money per girl they get to pocket. “The girls of course pay up and continue with their lives, they can afford to pay such amounts,” she explains.

If Kulthum has ever been arrested, it does not seem to have left her shaken or bothered; she insists that she is happy with her job, is used to it and knows what she is doing. “I don’t have a set income, some days are good, while others can be slow, but most of the time I’ll get up to Sh 50,000 -70,000 per day,” she says. The fact that Kulthum and many others like her are able to earn more than Sh1 million a month seems to be the impetus behind their contentment under such dangerous circumstances. Here, like anywhere else, the bottom line is the money.

The seemingly joyful looks on many of the young women’s faces as they wave goodbye and tell me karibu and rudi tena (welcome, come again), emanates from the sense of freedom and financial mobility that they feel from being able to earn substantial amounts of money in the bustling city instead of the entrapment of village life. Local government and law enforcement only scratch the surface of the situation. “Our duty is to arrest such culprits and take them to court. We have also been educating the society around Buguruni on the effects of such a vice, unfortunately they have not heeded our calls,” expresses Mnangi, the RPC for Ilala, adding:

“It saddens me to see young girls of ages between 14 and 25 selling themselves at such hours, where are our morals?”

*Names have been changed.

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