Young LGBTI people who are forced out of their families homes through homophobia are particularly vulnerable
Poverty-stricken Namibians are turning to gay sex work to escape widespread unemployment, which is so bad it forces people to eat out of the garbage.
That’s according to leading Namibia sex workers rights campaigner Nicodemus ‘Mama Africa’ Aoxamub who told Gay Star News: ‘Poverty leads Namibian men to sell their bodies to eke out a living.’
Aoxamub has been a male sex worker for the past 33 years in the mineral rich Southern African country which has a high unemployment rate.
The activist who is on the forefront of sex workers rights now leads Rights Not Rescue organization as an executive director since its inception in 2010.
Aoxamub, a son of a former freedom fighter of Namibia’s independence started sex work to feed his family at the aged of 10.
‘I feed my 12 siblings and mother from it [sex work]. From dustbin’s rotten food we started eating nice food at our home,’ Aoxamub proudly said.
‘Sex work can changes lives, I don’t know why our government does not want to decriminalize it,’ Aoxamub said.
He says there are now more than 3,000 men, both straight and gay, who eke out a living by offering sex to clients. Rejections by their families also force young LGBTI children into sex work.
‘Young people are disowned by their families because of their sexualities. School fees are also withdrawn by parents and in some instances they are chased away from home. For these youths without any skills, sex work is an option,’ Aoxamub said.
‘Rather than looking for rotten food in dustbins men will offer sex for money to both woman and men,’
Although male sex workers can make up to N$6,000 ($582 €424) per night they are tortured and abused by their clients.
Aoxamub further said male sex workers were rarely seen during Apartheid rule in Namibia before 1990 but with independence the numbers have skyrocketed due to poverty.
On social networks and in newspapers, men place adverts offering sexual services.
In one newspaper, a man looking for gay men wrote: ‘Must be working and have own place. I will make your sex lives promising but you must take care of me.’
Contact details are also placed in the advertisements.
Aoxamub also revealed his dismay at the treatment of sex workers at health facilities. He said health professionals need to be sensitive to the issues affecting minorities.
‘At hospitals male sex workers are scared to tell nurses what problem they have due to negative attitudes towards them. That means male sex workers will report lies,’ he told us.
The Namibian police are also said to have negative attitudes towards LGBTI communities.
There are even reports of them laughing at male sex workers who go to the police station to report a rape.
‘They asked them how a male person can be raped by another men, one becomes a laughing stock. People don’t even report rape cases due such to behavior from police,’ Aoxamub said.
His organization campaigns for universal access to health facilities without stigma and discrimination of sex workers, and seeks to protect the growing Namibian sex worker communities.
Lubricants and condoms are handed out to sex workers on a monthly basis by Rights not Rescue organization in places including Katima Mulilo, Oshikango, Keetmanshoop, Walvis Bay, Swakopmund and the country’s capital city Windhoek which has high numbers of sex workers.
In the past some of the top politicians in the ruling party have called for decriminalization of sex trades.
Aoxamub said high-ranking officials make use of male sex workers services despite their anti-homosexuality stance.
Many LGBTI people live openly in Namibia but the country still criminalizes sodomy. In addition, Apartheid era laws against loitering and selling sex make sex workers lives difficult.
by Clemans Miyanicwe
Source – Gay Star News
