The teenage girls cannot remember how many men they have had to sleep with in the seven months since COVID-19 closed their schools, or how many of those men used protection.
They said that they have been sexually assaulted and then beaten up when asking for payment — as little as US$1 — to help feed their families, as jobs have evaporated during the pandemic.
From their rented room in Kenya’s capital, the girls said that the risk of getting infected with COVID-19 or HIV does not weigh heavily on them in a time when survival is paramount.
Photo: AP
“If you get US$5 in these streets, that is gold,” said a 16-year-old, seated on the bed that she shares with the 17-year-old and 18-year-old she calls her “best friends forever.”
They split the US$20 rent in a building where every room is home to sex workers.
The UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said that gains in the fight against child labor are at risk because of the pandemic.
The world could see the first rise in the number of working children since 2000.
The UN said that millions of children might be forced into exploitative and hazardous jobs, and school closures exacerbate the problem.
Mary Mugure, a former sex worker, launched Night Nurse to rescue girls who followed her path.
She said that since schools in Kenya closed in March, up to 1,000 schoolgirls have become sex workers in the three Nairobi neighborhoods that she monitors.
Most are trying to help their parents with household bills.
The youngest is 11 years old, Mugure said.
Each of the three girls sharing a room was raised with several siblings by a single mother. They saw their mothers’ sources of income vanish when the Kenyan government clamped down to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Two of their mothers had been washing clothes for people who lived near their low-income neighborhood of Dandora, but as soon as the first local case of COVID-19 was confirmed, nobody wanted them in their homes, the girls said.
The third mother was selling potatoes by the roadside, a business that collapsed because of a new curfew.
As eldest children, the girls said that they took it upon themselves to help their mothers feed their families.
The girls had been spending their free time as part of a popular dance group, and they were paid for gigs, but when public gatherings were restricted, that income ended.
“Now I can get my mom [US$1.84] every day and that helps her to feed the others,” one of the girls said.
Elsewhere in Nairobi, single mother Florence Mumbua and her three children — aged 7, 10 and 12 — crack rocks at a quarry.
The work is backbreaking and hazardous, but the 34-year-old Mumbua said that she was left without a choice after she lost her cleaning job at a private school when restrictions were imposed.
“I have to work with [the children] because they need to eat and yet I make little money,” she said. “When we work as a team, we can make enough money for our lunch, breakfast and dinner.”
The 16-year-old sex worker and her two friends said they hope that they would not need to do this for the rest of their lives, but they think their chances of returning to class are remote.
“Where we come from, we were some sort of role models,” the 16-year-old said. “Our neighborhood, if you get to 16 without getting pregnant and are still in school, then you have made it. Having avoided pregnancies, we were this close to graduating from high school and making history.”
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
RSS