By LEONARD KULEI and JALLY KIHARA
A looming fall-out between proprietors selling their wares in Nakuru streets and prostitutes whose population is becoming a nuisance may see the latter ejected from what has been their blossoming business ‘territory’ for decades.
Their bodies, enhanced by silicon, surgically developed posteriors and extreme body enhancers earning them that perfect curvaceous figure demand ogles from men and even women.
With unmarked boundary demarcation, the prostitutes line up along the busy streets, winking at every stranger, perhaps with the hope of winning their attention.
All of them, seemingly in their teens are dressed in skimpy attire that reveals plunging cleavages for all and sundry to see.
The girls employ their wit to con drunken men. That villager who has just earned some good money from the his land proceeds is a key target. Countryside teachers who throng the town during end month are also not spared from these girls’ whims.
Embarrassing nightmare
“They have impoverished many primary school teachers who have taken loans. Most of them come here to spend the night,” said James Kiragu, a bar attendant at a popular joint.
Walking along Kenyatta Avenue during the day may turn out to be the most embarrassing nightmare for many. The call girls openly fight for unsuspecting strangers, obstructing business for genuine proprietors who pay taxes to the County Government.
According to Joseph Muchiri, a shoe proprietor next to a popular drinking joint, men are the worst affected as they now keep off the street especially when with their spouses and relatives.
“Street girls here shamelessly call out to my potential customers. I have warned them to relocate, but I am the one who has instead suffered the brunt. Lately, I have been hardly receiving customers,” laments Muchiri.
Scholastica Mweni, a barber in one of the buildings allegedly hired by the twilight girls, says she hardly has any of her clients returning, as they are sexually harassed and stalked for their attention whenever they visit her barber shop.“I may close business soon if the authorities do not eject these women. They beg every man for sexual favours. They are also abusive and you can’t argue with them because they can really embarrass you in public,” says Ms Mweni.
Lately, the prostitutes who appear to rule the town when darkness falls have embarked on a worrying trend. They hurl stones at vehicles of “clients” who refuse to play to their sexual demands.
But what is astonishing about the power and freedom enjoyed by these prostitutes is the manner in which they command loads of influence among police officers in Nakuru.
According to Simon Mwangi, a recent victim of harassment, the girls elicit immense respect from some police officers, pointing to the fact that they are in collusion. Mr Mwangi says he had parked his vehicle on Kenyatta Avenue and proceeded to an ATM one evening when he was accosted by a group of the twilight girls.
When he came out, three women emerged from nowhere and began begging him for sexual favours. The girls turned hostile when they realised he was leaving without a word, and that is when they picked stones and hurled them at his vehicle, breaking his windscreen.
Surprisingly, after reporting the matter to Central Police Station, the three women thronged the place and began conversing in a “knowing” manner with the officers on duty. He was turned away by the police and attention shifted to the women, he says. “These officers need to be investigated to ascertain whether they collude with prostitutes to rob and assault innocent members of the public. I left the police station feeling dejected and ashamed. I need to speak to the Nakuru police boss on this,” says Mwangi. And indeed, investigations conducted by The Standard on Sunday reveal an intricate blossoming business between some police officers and the commercial sex workers in an effort to protect the women from constant police harassment.
The secret business web is a well-guarded secret that according to some prostitutes, is enough to keep a compliant police away from touching their monthly salary for days. Nancy, 23, whose ‘territory’ is the dingy pubs opposite Oginga Odinga Street, frequented by college students and village folk, tells of her growing business empire protected by some ‘friendly cops’. She says they came up with the idea after facing harassment by police and being locked up in police cells several times. According to her, no police officer in Nakuru can dare arrest her — unless they are newly posted there and are yet to be briefed by senior colleagues. She says each one of them parts with Sh1,000 a week, money that is collected by a senior prostitute and delivered to the collecting cop alongside the names of specific territory members. “Have you seen them arresting anyone of us here? That cannot happen, because we pay them Sh1,000 a week and that is how we survive here in town,” reveals Chebet. According to Elsie, a commercial sex worker, after the compulsory payment is settled, one is free to roam the streets and pose at any corner of the town, regardless of time of day.
Powers to recruit
Further investigations indicate some prostitutes are well-connected and thus are used by some police officers to withdraw money via M-Pesa when a ‘co-operative’ person is arrested. The person is then released before reaching the police station. “Some of us here are agents of police who conduct night patrols. They (police) send us money when they arrest someone at night and we withdraw it for them. This enhances safety of the officer since money transfer is a delicate transaction that can be traced,” says Anne Akinyi, a prostitute. The alleged police cartel, as expressed by some of the prostitutes is so established that they use some of them as spies on criminals on the run and on reporting some secret media surveillance that might capture those collecting bribes at night.
It is this alleged protection by the police that has made the prostitutes grow bold enough to openly obstruct businesses of genuine taxpayers, who keep the economy of Nakuru growing. “I am here to display my commodities. You people like talking badly about prostitutes and you don’t know what your kids will end up being. If these people feel we are obstructing their businesses, they can as well leave this place. We also pay the authorities,” says Daisy Wanjiru, a seasoned prostitute.
Although she cannot table any official document to show that they pay to display their ‘commodities’, Wanjiru points to the alleged cartel of police officers who roam the street at night looking for those who have not paid dues.
According to Maryanne Gathoni, who left her home in Nyahururu and ventured into the flesh peddling business, sex workers in Nakuru are organised to an extent of having a committee that lays down rules of the game.
The seven-member committee comprising pioneers of prostitution are conferred with the powers to recruit new members, set boundaries to the various territories where members lie in wait for customers and arbitrate customer-related disputes that may arise between sex workers.
The committee also sets the fee for sexual services to make sure charges remain uniform across all the red-light districts. “You are required to make a choice on where to be waiting for customers — no invading other peoples’ joints. You pay a certain amount of recruitment fee to join. They also tell us how much to charge customers, depending on the time a man wants to enjoy your services,” Gathoni says.
The skimpily dressed lass appears a minor, though she insists she is an adult. She, however, refuses to show us her national identification card. She says another girl who hails from her village in Nyahururu introduced her to the mostly night business.
Gathoni’s is a tale of a girl who has lived and hardened in the dark streets by her sex work and wits.
With the cost of living rising daily, pushing virtually everyone to the wall, the silent war between the prostitutes and the business community in Nakuru remains unattended by authorities and exposes one of the dire inefficiencies by both the police and the County Government.
