So today I got my first chance to have an interview with sex workers. Now, my project concerns sex workers but is specifically focusing on sex tourism. After many failed attempts at trying to have rendez-vous with the doctor in charge of seeing sex workers, I tried my luck with an NGO that operates in the area called PSI who was wonderful enough to set up a meeting between me and 9 sex workers (with translators). It was so great and informative for my project but good lord, it was heartbreaking. The sad thing too was that the women talked about this just as their job. they just did it for the money because they had no other option. Many of these women has difficult family lives, dropped out of school at a young age, and thus were uneducated and did not understand the importance of an education. Many of them once had husbands or partners and about 2/3 of the women (aged 19-30) had one or more children that they were trying to support.
Many of these women worked six or seven nights a week and really saw no hope of getting out of it. the only hope is that they will one day marry a foreigner. When I asked these women what they thought solutions to their problems were and what there dreams for the future were, all nine said that their dream was to marry a foreigner. It is so sad to me to see these women so dependent on men, especially men that do not even come fromm their country. It puts them in such a potion of submission which leaves them with no confidence to pursue any other dreams. I just wish these women could be empowered and taught that they can be independent- this would show them that they are so much more than their bodies.
These women were all just beautiful and so sweet and open. It is one thing reading about this and then actually talking to the faces that give the statistics.
Though the problem lies much deeper than these women's personal problems, although education is a big part of it- since Madagascar is a developing country and in the midst of a political crisis right now, it leaves many people struggling and living in poverty. There's nothing I can do to change their government, I guess I am just trying to come to terms with what I can do. This country has given me so much throughout my three months here. I guess what I am struggling with right now is, what can I give back?
An anti-sex tourism poster that another NGO gave me yesterday- These types of things are hanging on walls of hotels and restaurants discouraging people from sex tourism and trafficking of minors
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