Big tourneys out of the city attract sex workers

By John Lawrence and Elizabeth Mburugu

Sporting events have become the in-thing among many Nairobians, who spare no expense to accompany their favourite teams to tournaments outside and inside the city.

The events feature physically fit and sexually active sportsmen and fans who at the end of the day would want the fires in their loins quenched.

Into this mix are call girls who disguise themselves as models and tag along to provide this much-needed service.

Thrown in copious amounts of alcohol and you have a new sub-culture of sports prostitution increasingly threatening relationships and marriages.

On the weekend of August 30 to September 1, Prinsloo Sevens in Nakuru was a case in point.

One of the players, while speaking to The Nairobian on  grounds of anonymity, disclosed that he has experienced back-to-back services from a girl she met in Kisumu during the Dala Sevens.

“I do appreciate her a lot and if it were not for the sevens series, perhaps we couldn’t have met Cindy. She is a fine girl, beautiful and brainy. It’s a pity that such qualities get washed away into prostitution,” the rugby star said.

Some of the call girls from Nairobi are so assured of their clientele that they book themselves in the most expensive lodges in town.

Apparently, some of the city girls travel in the disguise of models with an aim of striking business deals.

One of them, Pauline (not her real name) travels with a team of four girls who book themselves in expensive hotels at every city they tour.

Pauline told The Nairobian that in the 2013 season, business has been booming at football and rugby tournaments.

“Gor Mahia is enjoying a good run at the helm of Kenyan Premier League and AFC Leopards have moved a number of their matches to Mumias. That only means one thing: Good business.”

Football matches away from the city, in particular, often attract dozens of prostitutes.

Fans get an opportunity to spend ‘quality time’ with their clandestine lovers while following their favourite team.

Pauline explains that they are however encountering competition in their chosen line of ‘work’.

“There are married female fans, some with well-paying jobs who offer same services but that doesn’t worry us. Our biggest competition comes from the university students who travel in large numbers and charge cheap,” she said.

Recently during the Driftwood Sevens, call girls from Mombasa clashed with their Nairobi counterparts in a club in Mtwapa. Mombasa call girls were not amused by the attempts of the ‘strangers’ (Nairobi-based prostitutes) who were ‘trespassing’.

It is not only players and fans who are targeted by the prostitutes. When the sun sets, the female gangs cast their nets far and wide from the match officials to the members of the sports federations and the unsuspecting journalists.

“It is always a big catch if you land in the hands of a journalist, especially the ones involved with big media houses because you stand the chance of future engagements,” Pauline, who has been a sex worker for six years, said.

Major hotels and bars also make it big in terms of sales but this does not come without challenges as lodging attendants find it difficult managing movement in and out of the rooms.

“We have had problems with clients especially during sports events and at times the players too are caught in between with some bribing our night-shift room attendants,” one of the managers of a beach resort in Mombasa said.

“When doing their bookings, they ask for single rooms only to show up with company late in the night which amounts to extra costs that some are never willing to pay.”