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Short of choices, she said another colleague who was already a prostitute took them to the streets of Mbarara City, but they could not manage the competition
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Jovita Hasto
MBARARA/IBANDA
In the past, prostitution was largely treated as an urban practice, but that is no longer the case. A visit to several growing trading centres reveals how the sex trade has taken hold in rural communities. This trend is characterized by numerous lodgings and bars, which are convenient for visitors spending the night in these upcoming centres on the outskirts of towns.
At Rwentanga Trading Centre in Bubaare Sub-county, Mbarara District, there are several bars, most of which have attached lodges. All these lodges hire or employ young girls to attract customers who buy drinks and later pay for sex. Besides that, the women work for a week at most before being taken to other places.
With a bodaboda man I traveled with, we bought a young lady drinks and food as we tried to inquire more under the guise of romantic advances, and she opened up.
"If you want to sleep with me, it's just Shs 10,000, but not the whole day. You also pay for a lodge, which is Shs 5,000 every two hours," one woman told Torch Media.
After one bottle of beer, she became more excited and revealing about how they run their businesses.
"My husband divorced me. Together with a friend, we could not get enough money to look after ourselves and our children. We tried to find jobs in Mbarara City, but they were not sustainable," she revealed.
Short of choices, she said another colleague who was already a prostitute took them to the streets of Mbarara City, but they could not manage the competition. That is how they ended up in this place.
"We scouted this place with our colleague who had first been employed as a bar maid here. She told us about the opportunities to make money, and that's how we ended up here," she said.
When asked where they get customers, she told us that they are business people and even villagers.
"The area has a lot of agricultural potential, so many people come here to do business. The locals are also our customers. There are also institutions, so the workers are our customers. But we also have connections in big towns, and sometimes men follow us here because they can easily elude being tracked by their families, as some of them are married men," she added.
The scenario above is what is happening in most rural areas.
Mr. Charles Mugisha, a resident of Nyamarebe Sub-county in Ibanda District, says that girls around the age of 16 and 17 are the most targeted for prostitution.
"Local bar employees recruit girls around 16 years of age, claiming that they attract men. The girls easily get into prostitution, especially when they get drunk. I wonder about the life of a girl child who stays in a bar from 10 p.m. till late," he stated.
He adds that even married women are abandoning their families for multiple men who give them money.
"There are older women, and some have abandoned their husbands for other men they meet in bars. Such ladies are lazy; they lack what to do and resort to alcoholism when they meet their lovers," he added.
Mr. Mugisha says that prostitution has mostly affected young girls in rural areas, leading to unplanned pregnancies, deaths from unsafe abortions, school dropouts, and the inability to identify the father of a child due to sleeping with multiple men, which brings shame to their families.
Mr. Agustino Twesigye, the LC1 chairperson of Kakindo I Cell, Ishongororo Town Council in Ibanda District, stated that prostitution is increasing, which he attributes to the consumption of kombucha drinks that make women easily wooed.
"Women and young ladies who go to cinema halls and bars in ghettos are consuming kombucha drinks without control. Others have intentions of stealing money from men in bars, and at the end of it all, they get addicted to prostitution," he stated.
He said that some women are naturally inclined to prostitution and go to bars looking for men to sleep with after being promised gifts. He further explained that the number of prostitution-related cases reported to him as the LC chairperson has increased from roughly one case a month to six among couples.
"Women complain to my office, claiming that their husbands have abandoned their families. Men are chasing their wives out of homes when they want to bring prostitutes in," he explained.
According to Mr. Twesigye, families have broken down, children are dropping out of school, and sexually transmitted diseases are on the increase due to prostitution. He advised young girls to be patient for a better future and to concentrate on their studies, and for couples to stay faithful to one another.
Mbarara District has a high HIV prevalence of approximately 9.6%, which is considerably higher than Uganda's national average of 5.5% to 6.0%. This is often attributed to mobile populations such as truck drivers. Meanwhile, the prevalence rate for Ibanda is 7%; most infections are in the municipality and developing town councils and sub-counties, with new infections coming primarily from the youth.
Torch Media Africa
