Urban sex work in Uganda
Sylvia Tamale
What is Love?
Love is something natural
Love is a key to life
Love is education
Love is science
Love is light
Love is a gift of speaking in strange tongues
Love is beyond human control
Love is secret
Love creates hope
Love is history …
(graffiti on the wall of a brothel in Kisenyi)
One of the most exciting (and humbling) aspects of doing field research is the surprises it throws up. The last thing I expected to find on the wall of a slum brothel was poetry. The experience of seeing and reading the poem I have reproduced here opened my eyes to the deeper reality of people’s lives, beyond the rough of the wall, breathing between the reality of the lives of the people. Those simple lines sent out a powerful message of a voiceless marginalised and subculture community.
Police swoops of prostitutes on Ugandan streets and various brothels are a relatively common occurrence that is often reported in the local media. In spite of being outlawed, this form of subversive sexuality has boldly endured across time and space shaped and reshaped by forces such as colonialism, racial and gender supremacy, capitalism and globalisation. The study described in this chapter sought to explore and analyse the link between sex work, gender and the law, and the nexus between labour, desire and female offending.
Under Ugandan law, prostitution is illegal and has been penalised by the Criminal Law.2 The legal regime is based on the belief that effective law enforcement and repression can and should reduce prostitution. Section 138 of the Penal Code defines a prostitute and prostitution thus:
In this code a prostitute means a person who, in public or elsewhere, regularly or habitually holds himself or herself out as available for sexual intercourse or other sexual gratification for monetary or other material gain and ‘prostitution’ shall be construed accordingly.
This definition limits culpability of the offence to the sellers of sex (the majority of whom being women) and not to the clients (mostly men). What this means is that if a woman is found guilty of ‘selling sex’, she is liable to a sentence of up to seven years while the client that paid for her service walks away free. Furthermore, the dependants of a sex worker such as her children, elderly parents, etc., may also be sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for living ‘wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution’.
Prostitution or the exchange of sex for ‘monetary gain/material gratification’ is as old as humankind. Despite its criminalisation, the trade remains a resilient force that continues to flourish unhindered. Why is this? Does it make sense for there to be a continued criminalisation of prostitution? What substantive harm does sex work pose to society? More particularly, the law on prostitution clearly demonstrates the double standards that are employed in sexuality morals for men and women. What influence does this hybrid social construction of sexuality have on gender relations in Uganda? Whose interests does it serve and to what end? How does the commercialisation and banalisation of sex affect gender/power relations in Uganda? These were some of the questions the present study sought to address.
In Uganda, some of the reasons attributed to women’s entry into sex work include poverty, the disintegration of the traditional African family, domestic violence, orphanhood, peer pressure, armed conflict, sexual violence and premarital pregnancies (see Slum Aid Project 2002). In his study on Kampala sex workers, Richard Ssewakiryanga (2002) analyses the various ways in which sex workers construct their identities in relation to societal structures of power and the material contexts. His findings indicate that age, education, space, ethnicity and sex were critical factors in the self-identities and discursive social identities of sex workers. Such constructions were fraught with contradictions and competing desires. For example, he found that while retaining a ‘youthful’ look was vital for the marketability of sex workers, advanced age becomes a lucrative identity when clients seek ‘experienced’ women. Education (especially proficient articulation in the English language) allows sex workers to access different kinds of spaces as well as mobilise different identities. Many times, sex workers have to negotiate different identities to fit different contexts.
Data collection and analysis in this study were primarily guided by feminist methods of research, which foreground the experiences of sex workers, as well as the meanings that they attach to these experiences. Thus, although quantitative methods were employed (e.g. in the gathering of basic demographic data), qualitative research techniques of non-participant observation, informal interviews and focused group discussions were also used. It was particularly important to use methods that examine sociopolitical processes and allow for linkages between women’s sexuality, power and control. We took care not to objectify participants and to avoid hierarchical representations of knowledge about their lived experiences.
Data-gathering techniques included a desktop review of existing literature, reports, legislation and so forth. Five focus group discussions were conducted with sex workers in Kampala and Jinja. We also conducted in-depth interviews with at least 30 female sex workers and six male informants who had interacted with and/ or used the services of sex workers. A further 11 interviews were conducted with representatives of non-governmental organisations that deal with women’s rights issues and/or managers of and bureaucrats associated with sex work. Informants were primarily identified using snowball sampling.
We also employed the non-participant observation, whereby we spent time at places where sex workers are commonly picked up. This technique enabled us to gain useful insights into the lived experiences of sex workers. During data analysis, interview notes were reviewed and tentative themes highlighted. Recurring concepts that emerged from the data were identified and patterns noted. As analysis and data-collection progressed, questions became more focused, seeking more in-depth understanding of their meanings from participants.
Ethical concerns were integral to this study. As far as possible, participants were furnished with information relating to the objectives and outcomes of the study and their informed consent to participate duly sought. All possible measures were taken to treat participants with utmost respect and total confidentiality. For example, no material from the study is identifiable to participants’ true identity. With the exception of a clear indication of real identities (e.g. in the cases of government officials and NGO activists), pseudonyms are used throughout.
Sex work has not always been a criminal offence in Uganda. Customary law, for example, did not penalise sex work. It did, however, cover rape and adultery (Morris and Read 1966: 290–1), but married men were only penalised for adultery when it was committed with a married woman or a betrothed girl. Hence, the exchange of material gain for sexual services was generally tolerated under pre-colonial Uganda. However, with the unprecedented rural–urban migration in the 1910s and 1920s, the growth of Kampala city and the attendant ‘social explosion’, sex work flourished (Southall and Gutkind 1957; Obbo 1980; Musisi 2001). In a bid to chastise and curb illicit sexual behaviour and commercialised sex, the colonial Penal Code of 1930 criminalised sex work. Henceforth, the cultural landscape that had accorded spaces for non-procreative sexuality was changed by the stroke of the colonial pen.
The colonial law against prostitution was, needless to say, very much modelled on that of England at the time.3 The dye of Victorian Common Law morality and Judaeo-Christian culture was firmly bound into all the sexual penal offences. All of them imposed female sexual monogamy and chastity. Similarly, in the Buganda kingdom where the capital, Kampala was located, the elite members of the Lukiiko (Buganda parliament) with their colonial education and missionary influence felt the need to curb what they perceived as moribund morality. Hence in 1941, the Buganda government enacted a separate legislation to prevent sex work in the royal capital. It criminalised sex work and prohibited ‘an unmarried girl under twenty years of age to enter employment or engage in any kind of work which takes her away from the home of her parents or lawful guardians at night’.4 Many women were rounded up under this law and herded back to rural regions (Gutkind 1963).
In practice, the law is used as a ‘scarecrow’ by the patriarchal state in order to control women’s sexuality. Since it is difficult to pin down a prostitute in ‘the legal act’ of prostitution, most sex workers are arbitrarily prosecuted for the offences of being ‘idle and disorderly’ or being ‘rogues and vagabonds’.5 Another common and extraordinary charge levelled against sex workers by local government authorities is that of ‘disturbing peace by using violent or scurrilous or abusive term of reproach’.6 The law has become an instrument of harassment and abuse by the police. Most arrests are not pursued in courts of law. Sex workers are forced to either buy their way out of jails or to succumb to rape by the people that are supposed to enforce the law against them.
The study revealed the existence of three main types of sex work in Uganda. The first one is outdoor sex work, which constitutes street sex work. The second type is indoor sex work, which includes a wide array of sites such as brothels, hotels and lodges, bars and clubs, residential homes and massage parlours. The third type is export sex work whereby Ugandan sex workers ply their services in foreign lands such as China, Dubai, Hong Kong and Kenya. Both the expansion of sex work and state responses to its rapid growth point to the paradoxes and contradictions arising out of Uganda’s capitalist economy, its embattled patriarchy, globalisation and HIV/AIDS (White 1988, 1990; Davis 2000; Musisi 2001).
The ancient whore/Madonna paradigm is alive and well in Uganda’s patriarchal society. In local parlance, the whore is malaya and the Madonna is malaika. The livelihood of a sex worker completely goes against the defined notions of femininity and domesticity imposed on Ugandan women by patriarchal society, culture, religion and the law. Patriarchal morality emphasises the need for ‘good women’ to be chaste, modest and monogamous while secretly desiring ‘immoral malayas’.
Erotic sexuality is thereby constructed as a ‘private/intimate’ issue and is shrouded in secrecy and taboos. Hence when it is peddled in the public realm as work, it throws up challenges to the heteronormative notions of sex, gender and sexuality. As one sex worker participant in the present study stated: ‘The most critical persons in this work are our clients. During the day they say one thing and at night they come for our services’ (Connie, aged 27, Jinja).
In an earlier study of a cultural/sexual initiation institution (the ssenga) of the Bagda in Uganda,7 I reported that the basic message passed on to tutees is: ‘Be a nice, humble wife, but turn into a malaya (prostitute) in your bedroom!’ (Tamale 2005: 27). In other words, the ‘performance’ of a demure and coy woman must be shed once she steps into the bedroom in order to have a healthy sexual relationship with her partner. In this sense, regular Ugandan women are required to perform a version of femininity that is difficult to reconcile for its sheer perversity. The following observation by a Ugandan feminist interviewed in the course of the research sums the situation up well:
We are all prostitutes! A married woman is not in control of her sexuality … In order for her to satisfy her man, she must engage in prostitute-like behaviour. Moreover, if she needs a gomesi (traditional female outfit) or a car, it’s through sexual satisfaction. Isn’t that sex in exchange for material gain? Women will remain in a sad marriage for economic gains. So whether you’re on the street or in the comfort of your home, we are all prostitutes!
Women make up only 35 per cent of the waged employment in Uganda and occupy the least ranking and least paying jobs. Almost 68 per cent of female-headed households are also single-parent homes. Women spend more than nine hours a day (compared to one for men) doing care labour activities. The fact that women are the primary care providers in Ugandan society in the context of gender discrimination in education, diminished employment opportunities in the structurally adjusted economy, widowhood, single motherhood, increased orphaning due to HIV/AIDS and armed conflicts – all drive women into sex work. Most women turn to sex work as the only available means of earning money and many hold very traditional family values, despite the stereotypes that are depicted about them in the media:
Most of us have a side job to mask our involvement in the sex business … Many of us are Owino market vendors officially. Others have a stall in a shop on Luwum Street. Some of us are married women.
(Focus group discussion, Kisenyi)
I am a Muslim and go to the mosque regularly … But I have to do what I have to do in order to survive. I am the mother and father to my children. I have responsibilities.
(Hadija, aged 21, Kampala)
I have been able to help my siblings since both my parents passed away and all the property was grabbed by our relatives.
(Samali, aged 29, Kampala)
Sex workers put on a strategic performance, much like stage actresses, to achieve a specific goal. Depending on the time of day, opportunities, demands, resources and challenges that a sex worker encounters, her body moves in and out of the various roles that she fulfils. Indeed, the phenomenon of ‘shifting identities’ that most women are familiar with (e.g. from mother to wife to career woman) apply to sex workers in similar ways. The boundaries of personal ethics and morality that they draw for themselves constitute their self-actualisation.
We were curious to find out whether the unequal gender relations in wider society were replicated in the sex worker/client relationship. Given the fact that the transactions take place in an underground economy, under conditions of patriarchy, one would expect the scales of power in the sale of sex to tip heavily in favour of the male buyers. Indeed, the fact that it is the male client that decides on whether or not to have sex with the commercial sex worker gives him some degree of power over her. Furthermore, extensive evidence of violence against sex workers is a clear indicator of unequal power relations between clients and their customers.
The relations of power within the Ugandan gender systems are not always adhered to for the entire duration of commercial sex encounters. Power dynamics are somewhat destabilised in the face of a non-passive partner whose profession involves displaying sexual prowess and expertise. The leverage begins to kick in the reverse direction during price negotiations and the actual sex act when the sex worker is likely to set the boundaries of the encounter and even draws the lines in the power game (Izugbara 2005).
Hence, even as the work that women do in the sex industry renders them vulnerable, they also wield some degree of power through their transgressive activities. Indeed, many times, their skills and experience inevitably subvert the dominant sexual male and subordinate sexual female construct. Interview excerpts illustrate these paradoxical power dynamics between Ugandan sex workers and their customers:
Yes, the fact that I seek out the prostitute and buy her services means that I am in control … I must say though that contrary to common belief about commodifying the prostitute’s body, whenever I am with a Malaya it is me who feels like … [pause] a commodity, with her telling me what to do and being totally in charge of the whole act … You literally feel your power over her slipping with every passing minute and you tend to oblige, to kind of resign to fate and … you know, to pleasure.
(Oola, aged 35, Kampala)
Most men are emotionally weak and they come to us for TLC [tender loving care]. They can talk, talk and go on about their personal lives, cry like babies … We offer a listening ear and comfort them then they go back to their bickering wives. So, you can see that we malayas do in fact stabilise marriages [laughter]. That is a service that we offer but society overlooks it.
(Damali, aged 26, Jinja)
The seesaw of power relations during the paid for sex encounter underlies the complexity of gender relations in eroticised situations. As the contours of power are shifted and reconfigured at different points of the encounter, so do the levels of control that participating individuals wield over each other. The encounter deconstructs the radical notion that views sex work as the quintessential practice of female exploitation and inequality.
The ever present threat of violence has led sex workers to hone their survival skills. One of the most effective ways of coping with the difficult conditions under which they work is by distinguishing, both conceptually and practically, the material body from the symbolic social spaces that their bodies occupy when they are working. In this context, women’s resistance takes various forms and may include negotiating a way out of a violent situation through feigning total submission and offering free sex to boosting the macho ego through flattery and praises.
Protection may also be achieved by collaborating with lodge security guards, bartenders, local councillors and even street children who ‘look out’ for them; by working in pairs, requesting the client to pay in advance and ensuring that a partner takes the money; by using sign language to alert one another of impending danger; and by confiscating the property (e.g. watches, shoes, cell phones) of non-paying or violent clients, especially in brothels. Other techniques include weaving the hair in tiny long braids and clumping them together to form a hiding place for their money; using humour to deal with the pain and difficulty associated with their work; and using alcohol and other drugs to ‘numb’ the pain of humiliation and ostracism.
Contrary to the popular image of sex workers as ‘conveyers of disease’ (Ministry of Health 2006: 56), most sex workers we talked to in this study were extremely cautious about sexually transmitted diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS. Most insist that their clients use two condoms, one provided by themselves. As one male client recounted:
One time in the haste to wear a condom, I put it on the wrong way. You know … inside out. I tried to turn it and wear it the correct way but she insisted that I put on another one. Those girls take no chances.
(Phillip, aged 48, Kampala)
Despite the popular belief that all sex workers are needy, vulnerable individuals, there are obvious class-related differentials that exist in the Ugandan sex work industry. This study revealed an extremely variegated world of sex work that ranges from 12-year-olds selling sex on the street to a very sophisticated setup of ‘call girls’, charging hundreds of dollars. The stereotype that paints the sex worker as a poor, illiterate, non-skilled woman disregards the power and complexities associated with this profession.
While many sex workers that operate from Kampala slums like Kisenyi, Katanga, Kivulu and Bwaise or Jinja slums like Loco or Buwenda are undeniably disadvantaged and undeniably poor, our work encountered many who did not even remotely match that stereotype. ‘High-class’ women who operate from upscale bars and hotels or from their homes are protected from police harassment, abuse and violence. By the same token, street prostitutes and those working in slum brothels face the wrath of police brutality and the law:
I really don’t care whether prostitution is legalised or not … I do my business without any interference.
(Trish, aged 28, Kampala)
Most sex workers that we talked to did not share the ‘class privileges’ that Trish enjoys. So just as class mediates and brings meaning to the lives of ordinary women, so too does it underpin sex work.
Globalisation is transforming sex work in unprecedented ways. With easier transcontinental movement and advanced communication systems in a globalised world, come wider markets and opportunities for sex trade. However, African sex workers in foreign lands are vulnerable to gender/racial violence from their male clients and law enforcement officers. Olga operates mostly from Dubai and she related this harrowing story:
One time I went with a police detective that we all knew very well. He picked me from a bar and after using me he drove me into the desert and ordered me out of his car. He spat on me and told me to return to Africa. He left me in the middle of nowhere … I was stark naked and it was extremely cold in the sand. I walked for a very long time and when it was almost light I got to a gate of a house … The Arab lady of the house was very kind. She gave me an old skirt and a cloth to cover myself; she also gave me some money for transport.
(Olga, aged 30, Kampala)
The global web has also engulfed sex work in a different way. Conservative donor agencies, such as USAID, influence sexuality policies in donor-receiving countries such as Uganda. The US government has developed several plans that act as ‘blueprints’ for African women’s sexuality such as the conditionalities attached to the PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS relief) funds, including a pledge by the potential recipient that they do not support the decriminalisation of prostitution (du Bruyn 2005).
The expanding space for the commercial sex trade in Uganda occasioned by increasing tourism, hotel facilities, the entertainment industry, etc., has spurred sex workers to organise themselves to demand for their rights and challenge societal attitudes. In Kampala, the Lady Mermaid Bureau was established in 2002 (note the play on the word ‘bureau’ here, where the public think that they are dealing in money exchange). In Jinja, the Uganda Association for Prostitution was established in 2003, but later changed its name to the Good Shepherd Touch Organization, and is currently known as the Organization for Good Life of the Marginalized. Most notable about these organisations, however, is the fact that the most vocal and visible managers of both bodies were men who were not sex workers themselves. Obviously, there is need for women sex workers in the bourgeoning movement to take control of their groups through union-style organising in order to legitimise sex work.
The paradoxes highlighted in the paper reveal that prostitution laws and policies are influenced by the patriarchal state, sexism and classism, propped up by religious moralism. The tensions set out in the paper surface the complexities surrounding sex work and explode the common and simplistic assumptions that mainstream society holds about sex workers. Transactional sex work is neither clearly liberating nor oppressive; it simultaneously offers both the opportunities of liberation or oppression, with a whole range of experiences and possibilities in between.
The paradoxes, ambiguities and contradictions discussed here also have important implications for the relationship between sex workers and government, aid agencies as well as NGOs. Most times, these bodies deal with sex workers in oblivion to the complexities inherent in the lives of the last. Their lives are often portrayed against a negative backdrop of immorality, disruption and disease. This partial understanding of the lives of sex workers leads to ineffective policies and rehabilitation programmes.
However, in addition to the western conceptualisation of sex work as one form of work and/or an issue of human rights, sex work in Uganda must also be situated within the broader context of underdeveloped economies in Africa. In the context of few education opportunities for women, staggering rates of unemployment, low incomes for farmers and unskilled workers and the extent of gender discrimination and oppression, many women are left with no ‘choice’ but to engage in sex work. Despite this, it must be noted that the conditions under which Ugandan women enter the trade are highly variable.
The fact is that for most women in Uganda sex work is neither a criminal nor a morality issue, but an economic one. It is economic survival (and therefore emancipatory) for the women who engage in the profession. Adult sex work is no different in this context. It is a form of work, ‘chosen’ primarily for economic reasons, not moral ones. It is ultimately the duty of the state to provide safe working conditions, free of violence and abuse, for all types of work – whether it is in the home, factory, office, markets, bars, streets or brothels.
From the analysis of gender and sexuality, particularly commercial sex work, African feminists can draw up a progressive agenda in the short, medium and long term. The movement for the decriminalisation of sex work must be launched within the radical women’s movement as a subversive force against patriarchal control and oppression. Organised religion and its hypocritical moral code that is so influential in the lives of the wider population in Uganda must be engaged with. Feminists should organise against the various fundamentalisms and institutionalised hypocrisy with corresponding meticulousness and care.
1 I wish to acknowledge with gratitude the support extended to me by Baxter Bakibinga and Rita Birungi in collecting data for this study. I also thank J. Oloka- Onyango who read through earlier drafts of this report and provided valuable suggestions and wise counsel.
2 See Section 138 of the Penal Code Act, Chapter 120 of the Laws of Uganda (2000).
3 While the British law focused on the ‘public nuisance’ aspects, banning solicitation for the purposes of prostitution, in addition, the Ugandan law criminalised the sale of sex for money.
4 Legal Notice No. 101 of 1941, Uganda Laws, pp. 102–3, the Buganda Law for the Prevention of Prostitution.
5 Sections 167 and 168 of the Penal Code Act, Chapter 120 of the Laws of Uganda (2000). Section 167(a) of the Penal Code provides: ‘Any person who being a prostitute, behaves in a disorderly or indecent manner in any public place shall be deemed an idle and disorderly person, and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for seven years’.
6 Contrary to Rules 27(c) and 72 of the Urban Authorities Rules, Statutory Instrument 27–19, Kampala Law Report’s Local Government Practice Legislation of Uganda (2003).
7 The term ssenga literally means paternal aunt. She performs the role of tutor to her nieces on a wide range of sexual matters, including menstrual etiquette, pre-marriage preparation, erotics and reproduction.
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