One of the largest emergency relief camps for IDPs that was immediately established during the post-election violence was on the Agricultural Showgrounds of Kenya in
Eldoret. Managed by the Kenya Red Cross, when it first was allocated for IDPs in January 2008, within 48 hours the population grew exponentially from the first few displaced families to 500, to 10,000, eventually reaching approximately 19,400 by February 15 (Myrum, et al. 2008:44). Referred to by most as the Eldoret Show, 99 percent of these displaced persons were Kikuyu mostly from the North Rift Valley, divided among four smaller, tented, sub-camps provided by the UNHCR. This camp remained there, about two kilometres from the Eldoret city centre, for nearly two years until the Kenyan government closed its gates to the last of the IDPs at the end of 2009. It is here, at the Eldoret Show, where many women IDPs began to engage in different types of sexual-economic exchange in order to secure basic needs for themselves and their families.
Many sex worker IDPs spoke about the poor conditions they faced at the Eldoret Show, and while they received plastic tents and blankets within the first few days of arriving, they spent several nights with nothing but the clothes they were wearing when they fled their homes. Even inside these tents, multiple families were staying together, sleeping on the ground, relying completely on humanitarian aid. In her forced migration story, Judy went on to tell of her experiences at the Showground:
The problem was in the Showground because we didn’t have things to use like utensils. We didn’t have clothes. Like for me I was in a short and a sleeveless top, that was how I was staying and it was cold at night. My stepmother had just given birth to a baby who wasn’t even two weeks old. [The] problem was clothing and feeding…my mother had the small kids. It was difficult the kids were getting sick at the Showground she didn’t have money to take the kids to the hospital. There was not enough food to feed them.
Just as Judy suggests, many sex worker IDPs expressed that a lack of food and clothing were the main difficulties they faced at the Eldoret Show. Rachel also clearly stated this, pointing out especially how this affected the families at the camp: “Showground had the problems of food and clothes; people were not going to school. And you could find parents being sad because they were not able to feed their kids.” This observation of their
parents’ suffering at the Showground, particularly by girls like Rachel and Judy, who were between the ages of 16 and 18 at the time of displacement, became a critical factor in determining their entry into different types of sexual commerce.
With their schooling disrupted, their way of life devastated, and no longer able to depend on their parents, these young girls realized that they needed to both support themselves and also do what they could to alleviate the suffering of their families. This was further demonstrated in the migration story of Wanja, a 22-year-old who had also entered sex work at the Eldoret Show and, after becoming pregnant in Naivasha’s IDP camp, was a single mother to a one year old. Because of the inconsistency of humanitarian aid and its uneven distribution through the Showground, Wanja explained that she needed to find money for her basic needs and was unable to ask her mother:
Do you know there were times we could not even get food, oil? Sometimes we don’t even have pads, ladies were staying together. You can’t ask your mother because that would have added to her stress. The way we came from home, we could not take anything from there. It’s only the clothes you own. We went to the Show sometimes you want to shower you want to change. You have to look for money for your own.
Like Wanja notes, sex worker IDPs most often expressed that in addition to food and clothing, the most desirable items they did not have access to included oil and feminine hygiene products. Judy explained this further: “You’re being forced to do things you never want to do. For us ladies we want pads, we want oil. You cannot go and ask your father because he’s also struggling to get.” These conditions directly contributed to women and girl IDP’s engaging in survival sex to acquire such basic needs. Mukami, just 15 years old when she was displaced and went to the Eldoret Show with her three siblings and her parents, explained how she started selling sex out of necessity:
Because clothes it was upon me, everything was upon me…so I decided to help myself. I started working with another girl, we started walking together. I knew to sell pussy because pussy is a good thing. My first problem was I didn’t have
clothes, the second thing I did not have food or oil. I saw my parents were having a hard life also, I couldn’t ask them.
Rachel further remembered how she started to engage in survival sex within the Eldoret Show, where she eventually met with other sex worker IDPs:
I saw my mom was suffering and the life we were staying was not the life we were used to [so I started selling sex at the Showground]. I met with those ladies who do the same same business because we came from different places. They taught me how I can go meet a guy and sell sex, things like that… I used to buy clothes and the rest I give to my mother to help our young ones.
When Rachel notes she met sex worker IDPs at the Eldoret Show, she alludes to how peer pressure contributed to some women and girls shifting from engaging in survival sex inside the camp to doing sex work outside of the camp. In her narrative Judy talked about how her peers affected her sex work entry at the Showground:
I started sex work in 2008 in Eldoret when I was living at the Showground. My best friend called Kim showed me. You know there were so many problems there, there are things you need but you can’t go and ask from your parent. You want clothes. If you see another lady dressed well you feel it. Almost every lady was doing that work. And if you go ask a friend of yours to put on clothes that day, they talk badly about you. They were like so you can also join us. Even peer pressure can make you do things that you’ve never wanted to do. That is how I started.
However, Jane, a 27-year-old sex worker and single mother of two who had also entered into sex work at the Eldoret Show, explained how meeting other sex worker IDPs was not simply about peer pressure. Jane suggested that when she saw how her peers were able to support themselves through sex work, she also felt it could be a successful economic activity for her as well:
Because of the problems there, there wasn’t even food, so I started. And also the friends I met with said that work could be of help to me. We were talking and I
was telling them how life was hard, and they were telling me what they were doing so I decided to do.
While survival sex inside of the camp was predominantly an individual, discreet transaction within an environment of severe constraints, when these displaced women and girls shifted their sexual commerce to sex work these sexual-economic transactions changed. After meeting with other sex worker IDPs, many women discovered sex work outside of the camp was an employment option they needed to consider. For example, Rachel stated: “We met with those ladies who told me to go to a disco, we went and met with other guys. We went for the first, second, and third time I got used [to it].” Wanja further explained how she got used to selling sex outside of the Showground, describing her ability to do sex work as entering into her blood:
I started in 2008 in Eldoret because my mother didn’t have money and I had younger brothers and sisters, I decided to get money and try to help her bring them up… I started selling at the Showground. It’s when the violence started and we were staying between the Nandi and the Luhya. We were told to go to the police station rather than staying and be killed like our neighbours who were killed. When we went to the police station they said all the IDPs should go to the Showground… I met with my friends, some who are here now. We started going out like a group and I was in it. We go to big clubs I saw how someone was treating clients; they go with them and I also did it. It entered into my blood and I started.
Both of these statements by Rachel and Wanja allude to the fact that these women internalized the challenges and opportunities in sex work, and after careful consideration decided they were able to get used to, and benefit from, sex work.
For many women and girl IDPs who entered into sex work, they immediately discovered how profitable this job was and how helpful the income could be to their families. Judy succinctly summarized how sex worker IDPs would leave the Showground in the
evening, often in a small group, and do street-based sex work from nightclubs, bars, pubs, and discos in Eldoret Town:
We used to leave the Showground at six in the evening, you go to town, you meet with the friends and go to a pub. It was a good job you could get money because at the time you’re getting in you could meet with a man who could pay you 1,000 KES or even 800 KES. You could have slept with eight men per night, and that is much money. You can leave with even 6,000 KES. Those men could help us buy the things we did not have.
While sex worker IDPs were able to sell sex in Eldoret Town during this post-conflict period, especially after the peace resolution in April 2008, they continued to face
extremely high rates of sexual and gender based violence within the Showground. In fact, the persistent incidences of sexual assault and the risk of rape even factored into some women’s decisions to do sex work. This was the case for Wangeci, who saw other women and even young girls being raped and thought if this could happen to her, she might as well use sex to get the things she needed:
At the Showground I saw so many ladies were being raped. At the road you could not walk alone. I decided rather than being raped, I could be raped and get
diseases, I decided I could go and look for myself. I used to go early not very late, a time like this five o’clock, I go where I’m going. You can go get finished with someone and they pay for a taxi back or pay for a lodging for us. They were being raped because some of them were drinking alcohol. They came back without knowing themselves. That is when I decided rather than going and drinking alcohol and spoiling myself, rather you go and look for yourself. Some were being raped even if they were young girls.
Furthermore, because women and girl sex worker IDPs sold sex outside of the camp, they often faced sexual and gender based violence from the policemen who were providing security to the Eldoret Show. Sex worker IDPs were never able to bring clients back to the camp, and their movements in and out of the camp were strictly regulated. Wangeci explained how sex workers were often forced to give police guards a shot in order to be permitted to exit the Showground: “You’ll be forced to sleep with those policemen who
were at the gate to be allowed to go out. We used to give them a shot before going, to be allowed to go out of the Showground; yea you know at the gate there were policemen.”