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Kenya
How commercial sex workers care for their children The East African Published Date : November 18 2002 Posted Date : November 18 2002 By Dagi Kimani Commercial sex workers in Nairobi''s Kibera slum village have in recent years made commendable gains in the face of incredible challenges. Contrary to the common belief that they are irresponsible drunkards, commercial sex workers in Kibera, Nairobi, generally make heart-breaking efforts to guarantee the future of their children - but often fail because of grinding poverty, disease and ignorance, a new study says. With over one million residents, Kibera is easily Kenya''s and East Africa''s largest and most densely populated slum and as such displays at the sharpest the contradictions of life in the impoverished informal settlements that have sprung up in most urban areas in the region. According to the Kibera study, commercial sex! workers, or CSWs, have in recent years made commendable gains in the face of incredible challenges, including fully immunising about 96 per cent of their children under the age of five, far above the national average of about 70 per cent. About two thirds of CSWs with adolescent children have also educated them on sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/Aids, while all those with school-age children had at one time or another taken at least one child to school. "Most of what they earn from the sex trade cater for the immediate needs of their children," a report on the study published in the latest issue of The East African Medical Journal says, dispelling the popular notion that CSWs are irresponsible social misfits. "In this respect, the CSWs are no different from other women of low socio-economic status (who are struggling for the survival of their families)." The Kibera study involved 385 self-confessed CSWs aged between 18 and 49 with children belo! w 18. It was conducted by researchers from the University of Nairobi, Kenyatta University and the Kenya Medical Training College, led by Dr M.N. Chege and Dr J.J. Bwayo, between July and December 2000 following approval by the Ethical and Research Committee at the Kenyatta National Hospital. The CSWs studied had a total of 1,290 children. According to the researchers, the study was motivated by the need to establish the state of parenting conditions for extremely disadvantaged family units, with a view to recommending supportive interventions. "While a considerable body of research in Kenya has been focused on CSWs as a high-risk group for HIV/Aids and on their role in the HIV epidemic, no data is available on how they care for their children," say the researchers. According to the study, despite the efforts of the CSWs in their roles as mothers, life is a "nightmare for many of their children," both because of general poverty and the peculiar circumstanc! es of the sex trade. Many CSWs, for example, abuse intoxicants, or conduct their trade from their cramped one-room homes while their children are asleep. This has socialised some girl-children into commercial sex work at an "extremely early age, exposing them to HIV/Aids and other sexually transmitted diseases," says the report. At least 81 per cent of the CSWs in the Kibera live with their children. In many cases, the CSWs were also found to lock up their children at night while soliciting business, exposing them to various risks, including assault and fire outbreaks. For many of the CSWs, said the report, childcare meant meeting only the basic needs of their children, such as food preparation, washing clothes and bathing. "Discussing schoolwork, even rarely, with a child was reported by only 16.2 per cent of the CSWs, despite the fact that 77.1 per cent of the CSWs had children in school," Dr Chege and his colleagues say in their report. "Only 1.1 p! er cent of the mothers of school-age children took some time per day to discuss and guide their children on important issues." According to the study, "That a fifth of the CSWs surveyed had a secondary or above education shows a strategic occupational choice by mothers under severe formal labour constraints." The study also says that the fact that at least two thirds of the CSWs were once married "agrees with the government''s and Unicef''s situation analysis of children and women in Kenya, which concluded that the rupture of a parenting partnership generally worsens the economic condition of the mother and child forcing the mother to engage in risky business." The Mulindwas
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