Sex Workers in Addis Ababa
Thirty-eight women are sitting in a large hall in one of Addis Ababa’s slums waiting for our visit. We’re late, they’re impatient and they scold us soon after we arrive. Time is money and their “bosses,” who run the local bars where many of the women work as prostitutes, will fine them 10 Et.Birr ($0.60) for being absent,
For the next two hours we engage in a lively discussion about their lives, their frustrations and their expectations of this project: “Income Generation for Sex Workers,” a USAID grant to an American/Ethiopian NGO called AfricanAids Initiative International. Founded in the 1990s by an activist Ethiopian woman living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the NGO is affiliated with Harvard University’s W.E.B. Dubois Institute for African and African-American Research. In 2008 the NGO put together a proposal to USAID for this program. Though they originally asked for $500,000, USAID granted them $200,000 for 30 months, since they were being looked at as a “test.” The project is one of several the NGO runs with its staff of 27 people, under other donors such as UNAIDS.
Of the 38 women sex workers present in the meeting hall, 25% are in the target age group (16-24) according to the list we are given. The rest are older, some in their mid 30s. [We are reminded by one of the project staff that many of the women do not know their real age.]
Most of the women are from Addis, and most have children, quite a few with two or more. One woman talks about her teenage daughter who she is afraid will go into sex work. They talk about violence from their clients, exploitation and abuse from their bosses, and how they are pariahs in society (which is one of the reasons why, later on, they tell us they cannot approach any bank for loans.) They say they have no family, no husbands, and are the sole support for many people — children, sisters and brothers.
We talk about the economics of sex work. They say it is by far the most lucrative of the opportunities available to them. After having gone through the project’s “self esteem” course a month ago, all 38 of the women are still doing sex work. They do not go into all the details of their income but from what we can tell, it is possible to earn conservatively between $20 and $60 per day. And agreeing to have sex without a condom earns them double what they would get if they refuse. They talk about how their clientele is endless, because Addis is a “hub” — “everyone comes through here,” one woman says, “truck drivers, taxi drivers, and even diplomats with the African Union.”
The project is behind schedule. Because of administrative problems between the USAID office in Addis and USAID in Washington, and because of some disruptive events in the Ethiopian political situation, the project was only finally launched in July 2010, ten months late. By then the government institution FEMSEDA (Federal Micro and Small Enterprise Development Agency), which had been proposed as the skills training provider for the women had dropped out because of a change of function imposed by the government. The project coordinator told us that they were now getting “pro-formas” (bids) from private sector institutions who could offer the training “packages” for the different income generating options (the ones chosen by the women, we are told, are food preparation, sewing, embroidery and carpet-making.) Of the 80 women selected as beneficiaries of the program, 29 chose food preparation, 23 sewing, 17 embroidery and 11 carpet-making. The coordinator says they will begin the training in two weeks. Later in the office, it turns out that the contracts for the trainer organizations have not yet been finalized.
I ask the women what they expect from the project. Many stand up to talk. Several who want to do “food preparation” say they expect the project to provide them with pots and pans, stoves, a refrigerator, and one adds “my rent to be paid for a period of time, and other start-up capital.” Another adds, “an allowance for my children.” I ask how much start-up capital they would be talking about. They don’t know, and the coordinator interrupts my questioning suggesting that it is too early to ask such a question.
The president of the NGO then stands up to tell the women that the project funds are finite and that yes, they will get some of these things, but they should not expect to get everything they want. One of the women gets up and says she understands, and that “if I don’t get what I need, I will find a way to continue my work, I will fall down and get up and fall down and get up until I succeed.” Another gets up and says passionately “I need to get out of this work now, not tomorrow, but now, and I need your help.” Another says she prays the project will not end, and that it will continue supporting her until she can make it on her own.
The skills training, the tuition for which the project will pay, is set to last 3 -4 months, and to take up about 1 hour per day of the women’s time and will focus largely on the technical skills (baking, frying, sewing etc.), with some attention to the ins and outs of running a business. During the entire time they are in training, they will receive a fee, called a “sitting allowance,” and meals. When I ask about this, the director of the NGO says ”we have to pay them, otherwise they would not come.”
As we leave the hall, the project’s accountant enters with a bag of cash. The women line up and he hands out 70 birr (about $4.25) to each woman present.
Later in the office I ask the project leaders if they think that the women will be motivated to continue these income generating activities if they have received all the training, the capital and equipment free? I point out that the women won’t be risking as much as they would have if they had had to put up some of the capital themselves. They project leaders say they are sure this project will be sustainable, i.e., that the 80 women will have businesses that make good money and will continue to operate. They point out that the women have formed peer support groups and that after the project ends these peer groups will meet regularly and ensure the women keep up their work. But what if their businesses fail to earn them as much as they now make? I ask. After all, these are low skill, relatively similar businesses with no one having any inherent competitive advantage over any other (many people in the streets already sell food, many do sewing, etc.) And these new businesses are less portable than sex work, making it harder to change location (the city government during my visit was actively engaged in bull-dozing portions of the slums to make way for private housing developers). Is it possible, I ask, that some, if not many of these women will go back to sex work? No, we are told, that is unlikely to happen because the women have signed a pledge not to.
