SALC: Despite operating in a country where prostitution is not a crime, Malawian sex workers continue to face rampant abuse and exploitation. What is a crime is earning proceeds out of prostitution. Sadly, sex workers’ cries for help are often met with intimidation, scorn and, worse still, violence.
For 36-year-old Elizabeth (not real name), the experience is all too familiar. She has been in the trade for over 10 years and has encountered some of the worst forms of abuse. “I remember most recently, I met a customer at one of the drinking joints within Blantyre’s Central Business District [CBD]. We had some drinks together before agreeing to spend the night together. We agreed that he would pay me K30 000. He insisted to pay me in the morning and I trusted him,” she says. But when they woke up in the morning, Elizabeth’s customer claimed he did not have enough money, so he told her to hold on to his mobile phone and that they would meet later in the day within town for him to pay.
They agreed to meet at one of the popular bars, different from the one they spent their good time the previous night. “Around three o’clock, I saw him entering the bar, but with police officers. He approached me and told the police that I had stolen his mobile phone. “I tried to explain to the police officers that the mobile phone was a collateral for a session we had, but the police sided with the customer. It hurt me to the core,” she lamented, her voice laced with frustration.
She was locked up briefly at one of the police stations before being released unconditionally, without any charges. Regardless of the ordeal, Elizabeth continues her sex work because it is what brings food on the table of her two-member family. She says: “I have encountered abuses but this is what keeps me going. I can’t stop. I just hope that relevant stakeholders will move in to safeguard our rights.” But she is not the only sex worker facing abuse both in the streets and in bars.
While sex work is not illegal in Malawi, Section 146 of the Penal Code protects them from exploitation. The Section also prohibits living on earnings of prostitution. In 2016, the High Court of Malawi in Zomba gave clarity on this particular Section in its ruling in a case in which 14 sex workers sued the Malawi Government for compensation and damages for violation of their constitutional rights. The sex workers were arrested in 2009 in Mwanza and were subjected to HIV tests whose results were read out in an open court. This appalled the sex workers; hence, suing government for, among others, trauma they suffered as a result of the actions of police and health authorities.
In September 2016, then High Court of Malawi Judge Dorothy Kamanga ruled in favour of the sex workers and subsequently ordered that they be compensated.
Read full article: Hardknock life for sex workers
