SEX WORKERS FACE STIGMA DESPITE EFFORTS BY NGOs

By Aggrey Twesigye
Mbarara

Sex workers in Uganda continue to face torture and stigmatization despite efforts by human rights activists from different Non-Governmental organizations NGOs.

Sex worker is a person who provides sex work, either on a regular or occasional basis. The term is used in reference to those who work in all areas of the sex industry.

Sex work/ prostitution is illegal according to Uganda’s 1950 penal code act the more reason why those victimized, sexually and physically rarely receive protection from the state like any other gender based violence case.

These workers suffer in the hands of both security agencies and their Customers whom they say beat them up but don’t have where to run to for justice.

Ruth Nahwera a resident of Kikagati in Isingiro had an experience to tell of how she agreed with a man to use a condom but he decided to tear it which led to

unwanted pregnancy.

She narrated that she conceived following the incident and she is finding it difficult to take care of the child as a single mother with her earnings as a sex worker.

Like Nahwera, Many Ugandan sex workers confront many violations of multiple rights protected under international human rights law, including the right to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; the right to security of the person and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention; the right to equality before the law; the right to the highest attainable standard of health; the right to be free from discrimination; the right to work; the right to freedom of association; and the right to privacy.

Another sex worker who preferred confidentiality said she has been in the job for the last ten years but regrets adding that if she had an alternative, she would be long gone.

She attributed the situation to poverty, unemployment, which force them to sleep with men even when they don’t know them or what they are capable of doing.

Marion Nimusiima who works from border of Rwanda Uganda believes what her colleague said is not far from the truth; she was hired by a man she knew nothing about.

She added that he took her to his home, left a used condom inside of her, closed her inside the house and took off which almost finished her life if it was not for the intervention of the neighbors.

Local Leaders have nothing much they can do to get justice for the sex workers since their job is illegal but Gordon Mugabe LCI chairperson advised they form saving groups like any other persons in communities so that they have money for treatment in case of any physical victimization.