Kenyans want sex work legalised — survey

Out of a sample population of 1,224 respondents countrywide, 76.6 per cent say county and national governments should decriminalise sex for money.

What you need to know:

  • 76.6 per cent say county and national governments should decriminalise sex for money.
  • Ethiopia and Senegal are some of the African countries where prostitution is legal to people above 18 but owning a brothel is illegal.

The majority of Kenyans want commercial sex work legalised and regulated to curb the spread of HIV and Aids, a new study shows.

At the same time, most prostitutes say they are willing pay tax should the government recognise the oldest trade and allow them to operate freely, the study released on Friday by Spectrum Network International says.

Out of a sample population of 1,224 respondents countrywide, 76.6 per cent say county and national governments should decriminalise sex for money.

PUBLIC COFFERS

The respondents comprised 57.1 per cent males and 42.9 per cent females aged 18 and above and cut across all professions, age groups, religions and geographical settings.

The study also sampled 406 commercial sex workers separately across the country and more than half or 52.2 per cent reported they were ready to contribute to the public coffers.

On average the study, titled Public Perception of Commercial Sex Work in Kenya, found that a commercial sex worker rakes in Sh1,500 a day.

Considering a study done in 2001 that showed that Kenya has over 200,000 men and women selling sex, Spectrum International put the daily income from the sector at Sh300 million.

This implies that the government loses an opportunity to tax about Sh110.5 billion annually that is earned by the commercial sex workers.

It must, however, be noted that not all sex workers ply their trade seven days a week for the whole year or that they attract clients every day.

But economists argue that despite the attractive revenue the government could reap, the country’s social cultural dynamics do not allow it to tax it.

“The reason prostitution is illegal, though we know it happens, is because we are a highly social country and that makes it hard for the authorities to regulate, let alone tax sex workers,” Ms Joy Kiiru, an economics lecturer at the University of Nairobi said.

“It happens in highly developed nations where there are strict guidelines around the conduct of prostitution, but in Kenya we have so many social and cultural barriers,” she said.

According to Mr Meshark Ndolo of Spectrum International Research and Strategy Division, respondents said that legalising and regulating prostitution will reduce the spread of HIV and Aids and crime as the majority of sex workers will have a code of conduct to subscribe to.

“The majority of respondents opted to have commercial sex work legalised, regulated and taxed to ensure orderliness, mitigate crime, fight corruption, drug abuse, stop child prostitution as well as stop the spread of HIV/Aids,” Mr Ndolo says.

INVOLVED IN CRIME

Up to 84.1 per cent of respondents said prostitutes were involved in crime directly and perpetrated criminal activities on their clients.

“This was further evidenced by 93.5 per cent of the 406 sex workers polled who confirmed having stolen from clients or coordinated a mission to steal from a client spotted to have money or expensive gadgets,” the study found.

Prostitutes surveyed said they pay an average of Sh400 to security providers/business owners per day, while others are only required to buy a soft drink at the entrance for about Sh70.

The discrete nature of prostitution in the country amidst its proliferation, the researchers say, is the reason for increased cases of child prostitution since there are no rules governing the sector.

Girls below 14 are selling their bodies to survive, the researchers found.

Unicef, in a 2006 study, reported that about 30 per cent of children of 12 to 18 years practised some form of sex work.

Most Kenyans polled (1,070 or 87.2 per cent) agreed that the lack of regulation and the illegal nature of prostitution attracted the younger generation to the trade, resulting in a rise in child prostitution.

Sex workers have repeatedly justified their profession, saying, it is not illegal since they do not steal from anyone.

In 2012, they demonstrated in Nairobi demanding to be regulated and taxed.

The Unicef survey established a high level of acceptance of prostitution and commercial sexual abuse not only by tourists, but also by Kenyans, including parents of the girls that engage in the business.

Sex tourism, for instance, goes on under the noses of the Tourism Police “as they do not want to discourage the hundreds of thousands of white tourists from coming to Kenya’s coast”, according to the Unicef poll.

UNPROTECTED SEX

In the Spectrum International survey, more than half of the 1,224 sample population accused the government of doing little to stop commercial sex work.

Irrespective of the government spending a lot of money to curb HIV/Aids, said the research, 43.5 per cent of prostitutes indulge in unprotected sex for cash.

Unprotected sexual behaviour was mainly reported in rural and peri-urban settings where sex workers are easily baited using higher quotations of money, being drugged and in some instances threatened with assault.

A paltry 12.8 per cent of sex workers in rural and peri-urban settings have been trained on protection unlike in urban settings where free clinics offer medical care and training.

However, only 81 out of the 406 polled sex workers agreed that commercial sex work had increased the spread of HIV/Aids.

This group said they had witnessed their HIV-positive colleagues who indulge in unprotected intercourse die.

ProCon.org, an online non-profit charity, says an almost equal number of countries have decriminalised sex work as those that prohibit the trade.

In Kenya, prostitution is prohibited under the Penal Code, Sections 147 to 154.

Ethiopia and Senegal are some of the African countries where prostitution is legal to people above 18 but owning a brothel is illegal. These governments do not tax the sex workers.

Legalisation in the two countries has, however, not contained the rise in child prostitution.