Paper reports of influx of foreign sex workers from Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia into Africa's newest state
NAIROBI (TrustLaw) – Kenyan women are being trafficked to new country South Sudan as sex workers, according to a report in Tuesday’s The Star newspaper.
There has been an influx of foreign sex workers from Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia into Africa’s newest state, which became independent six months ago, the newspaper said.
“I thought that I was going to help my aunt in her restaurant,” Janet Kanini, a 25-year-old Kenyan woman told the paper.
She worked in her aunt’s Juba restaurant for a week before being enrolled in a brothel, the paper said.
“I could service five male clients in a night. They never paid me anything as the money went to the brothel owner who I referred to as ‘mum’”, Kanini was quoted as saying.
There are between 4,000 and 10,000 sex workers in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, according to U.S.-funded, development organisation Family Health International, the report said.
Another Kenyan sex worker, Triza, a graduate of Nairobi University, said that she moved to Juba because she would make more money – up to $500 a week.
“There are so many of us at Koinange Street and with the harsh economic times in Nairobi, people are wary of spending on sex,” she told the paper, referring to a well-known red light district in Nairobi.
“I target tall Dinka men who drive cars with number plates written GOSS (Government of South Sudan).”
(Editing by Rebekah Curtis)
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