(MENAFN- The Post)
MASERU
LEBOHANG* has two jobs, a junior
government job by day and a sex work by night.
Instead of standing on street corners and alleys like other sex workers, Lebohang is called by her clients for appointments at their homes and lodges.
“I have two phones, the one for friends and family and the other for my clients,” she tells thepost as she sips coffee at an upmarket restaurant in Maseru
After weeks of coaxing, Lebohang has reluctantly agreed to meet thepost's reporter after work on a Friday. She keeps glancing at her phone during the interview.
“I am sorry, I am expecting a call,” she says.
And sure enough, the phone rings. A few moments later her client disembarks from a cab and she waves a neatly manicured hand, inviting him to her table.
“He's Ghanaian,” she whispers as she signals this journalist to go away. The interview abruptly ends.
When we meet over the weekend she warns us to quickly get on with the questions because one of her clients might call anytime
Weekends are her busiest time, she says.
She tells thepost that she is into sex work to supplement her salary, but she refuses to say how much it is.
“One's salary is their secret.”
The single mother of two boys of different fathers, says she wants to keep her children“in schools that matter” hence she cannot quit sex work until they are through to university.
She says she started sex work 17 years ago, first working along Kingsway Street at night
As she got experienced she started“doing it the more professional way”, which is getting her clients to call her for appointments at their houses or a lodge.
“I decided to join prostitution in January 2007 when my landlord threatened to kick me out of my rented two-roomed house,” she says.
“I was pregnant with my first child at that time and the father had dumped me to marry another woman.”
The child's father later migrated to South Africa and never returned, leaving her to fend for the boy.
“I went to the street pregnant and managed to get many clients and within no time I was able to pay rent and buy food.”Advertisement
“I never looked back and I have no regrets.”
She worked on the streets until 2012 when one of her clients, a prominent politician, got her a junior position in the government.
“I couldn't get a high-paying job because I don't have university education.”
“My job is permanent and pensionable but the salary is so low that I can't build any bright future for my children with it,” she says.
Lebohang says she has not experienced many setbacks in sex work“because from the onset I recruited some policemen to deal with difficult clients”.Advertisement
She says ever since she joined the government her business is more profitable because she has managed it better than when she was working on the streets.
“I am able to take care of my body and I maintain my good looks, which makes me more attractive to the kind of clients I'm after.”
Asked if she does not encounter violent clients or rapists who refuse to pay for services, she says“no, that's for low-class prostitutes from the streets, where I was once”.
“My clients know that I'm not very desperate. People who see me with them think I'm their girlfriend while actually I'm at work.”
She says her target is foreign men and middle-class locals“who understand that I'm in business”. She prides herself in“not sleeping with riffraff”.Advertisement
Lebohang says on good weeks she makes M5 000 per week, charging between M500 and M1 000 a night, depending on the client's generosity.
thepost spent two days with a 35-year-old primary school teacher north of Maseru who also sells sex“in a desperate attempt to stay afloat in economic hardships”.
She holds a Diploma in Primary Education from the Lesotho College of Education and earns about M9 000 from her teaching job.
“But it is not enough to cover my financial needs,” she says.
The mother of three says what makes things tougher for her is that her husband works in the textile factory where he earns very little
“I am the only one in a family of seven children who went to school and works.”
“My family is expecting me to assist them with some money.”
Similarly, she says, her in-laws are also expecting money from them“because they also depend on my husband”.
Unlike Lebohang, she is not choosy about her clients. She says her first clients were street vendors.
“What is the difference with their money because it has the same value as any other money?” she says
“I do not mind what people are saying about me. They have to mind their own business.”
“As long as we engage in safe sex, I do not have any problem.”
Her husband does not know of her side job.
“He doesn't ask questions when I offer him food on the table.”
She says as time went by she garnered many other clients who gave her better money than the street vendors
But what really pushed her into sex work, she reveals, are multiple debts she has with various loan sharks in the city.
“The deductions going to the loan sharks would leave me with nothing,” she says.“I am drowning in debt.”
Another sex worker, working as a marketer for a local company, says she is earning a low salary and cannot afford all her needs.
“We have to be well presented since we are the face of the company we work for,” the marketer says.
She says women, unlike men, are fond of fancy clothes that are beyond their means
“We are not in prostitution because of sexual desire or seeking sexual satisfaction,” she says.
“We simply want these men to give us money after sex so that we can plug some holes in our finances.”
“The economy is rough. It's bad,” she says.
The high cost of living is pushing women into sex work in various ways, whether on the street, work premises or online.
Lately, there has been a tendency of women who post their contacts on social media telling men that they are available
Lepheana Mosooane, the Executive Director of Key Affected Population Alliance of Lesotho (KAPAL), says the reasons that drive women and girls onto the streets are the same as those that drive the working women.
Mosooane is quick to mention that they are“not working with prostitutes but sex workers”.
He says they work with females aged 18 years and above where they advise them to access health services.
“We assist them to report any violence against them,” Mosooane says.
Mosooane says they also assist them with financial literacy to manage their earnings from sex work
KAPAL is an organisation that works to improve the lives of key populations by addressing the negative societal attitudes and perceptions that lead to the violation of their legal, medical and social rights.
It operates only in Maseru.
*Some names have been changed.
Majara Molupe & Caswell Tlali
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