'I cannot ask sex workers to quit'

By Pascal Kwesiga                                    

KAMPALA - A woman who describes herself as the "ssenga (counselor) of sex workers" in Kampala has said she cannot ask the ladies of the night to quit prostitution because, according to her, sex trade is their only source of livelihood.

In local culture, ssenga is a marriage counselor (paternal aunt).

The young woman made her remarks during a meeting in Kampala attended by USAID and TASO officials to mark the closure of a five-year project that aimed at enhancing access of HIV/AIDS services.

She is among the beneficiaries of the project which was funded by USAID and implemented by TASO through its 11 district service delivery points across Uganda.

She said she was “rescued” from prostitution in 2003 by health workers during a community service trip in her area – Katanga slum.

The team from The AIDS Support Organization (TASO) was at the time moving around the area offering free HIV testing and counseling services. Meanwhile, she was lying in her bed, very sick.

“I had no idea which disease I was suffering from,” she told the audience.

She had been in the sex trade for “a long time” before being forced out due to her strange illness.

So when a fellow sex worker spotted the health team from TASO in the area, she approached them and took them to the ailing woman’s home.

“I was in a very bad shape and the health workers could not attend to me at home. They took me to the hospital and tested me for HIV. I was HIV positive and pregnant. I do not know how I became pregnant,” she recalled.

Before falling sick, her operation station (for prostitution) used to be Wandegeya, about a mile out of the city centre.

When she realized she could not continue ‘operating her business’ – her health had deteriorated and was confined to her sick bed – she started to believe in God’s existence, and would pray often.
 

The director of the USAID Mission in Uganda Leslie Reed (L) inspecting the exhibition by TASO at Grand Imperial Hotel on Tuesday. PHOTO/Peter Busomoke

The former sex worker’s story seemed to have moved the audience she was addressing inside Grand Imperial Hotel on Tuesday.

“Clients were telephoning me all the time but I feared to meet them because I was in a very bad shape.”

Thanks to TASO, she managed to give birth to an HIV-free baby, and today she owns a beauty salon in the very area from where she once sold her body for money – Wandegeya.

Despite quitting the trade 11 years ago, her sickness being her turning point, the self-proclaimed ssenga says she cannot tell other prostitutes to quit as well.

“Although I am still the ssenga of sex workers, I cannot ask them to give up prostitution because I do not have food to give them.”