Sections of women in Kampala are too afraid and ashamed to show their faces or have their real names used while trading their bodies for money. Many women in Uganda’s capital city Kampala have been driven to sell their bodies to put food on the table for their children, parents … for as little as $1 a day.

“People should not talk hell about us,” says Faridah Nantumbwe, the chairperson of harlots operating on Luwum Street in Kampala. In Islamic teachings, women have to wear scarves but Faridah even if she is a Muslim; was dressed in a skimpy mini skirt and short blouse that was revealing part of her belly.

The political leaders all say that Ugandan women, especially those in cities and towns have lost their way, but they never ask why women do prostitution.

Many mothers, old women, and younger girls, in Kampala and its suburbs look at prostitution as a booming and lucrative business.

“I don’t have money to educate my children, to take them to hospitals when they fall sick, and pay rent. I have to do anything that I can to preserve my children, because I am a single mother,” says Nantumbwe, while explaining why she does prostitution.

“No matter how off the normal path I may be, I remain a Ugandan,” she adds as anger and frustration rise in her voice as she speaks.

Nantumbwe says that her neighbours and parents think that she has a night job when she goes away. She says at first she was vending food on Luwum Street but she wasn’t making much money. Other women claim that they do prostitution because their husbands died. Another harlot, who only identified herself as Ann told our scribe Walakira Nyanzi in Kampala this week that most women have clients that call them for commercial sex a couple of times a week. Some women resort to trips to find potential clients or they flag down vehicles.

Ann says at first she rejected it but later realised she had to do it to earn a living. It seems prostitution is now a choice for most women in Kampala and most parts of Uganda because the National Resistance Movement Government (NRM) has not created enough jobs for its citizens. “The vice is increasing,” says Ann.

Ultimate Media