Malawi: A guaranteed income

Outside a faded apartment in the capital Lilongwe stands Violet. She has traded sex for money since 2006. But now she is not selling sex; instead she is selling hairdressing services. Violet recounts her story:

‘Sometimes I cry myself to sleep when I look back at my life. I never thought I‘d measure a successful day at work by the number of men I had entertained in bed. I entered the sex trade at the age of 22 after losing both parents. I have five younger siblings to look after. I needed to work to provide for them, but there was nothing I was trained to do so I began to have sex for money.

As a young sex worker life was difficult. I was beaten by clients, robbed of money by older sex workers, had clients who refused to pay and was arrested by the police a number of times. All this for barely $3 a day.

Then I was given a life-changing chance by the Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM) – to learn a skill. I was given a choice to learn about catering, tailoring, hairdressing or mushroom farming. I opted for hairdressing. When I finished my training I was lent some money to start up my own hairdressing salon in a market. It’s called ‘Tithandizane’ which means ‘Let’s help each other’.

I now make enough money to support myself and my siblings. When I was a sex worker, I had no guarantee about clients, and many days I returned with nothing. Now, I go home everyday with money in my pocket.

Before I became involved with FPAM’s project, I knew little about sexually transmitted infections, family planning or HIV. But part of my training was also about how to look after my sexual health. FPAM’s clinic provides a number of sexual health services for sex workers, such as pregnancy tests, STI treatment, voluntary counselling and HIV testing. There are also free condoms! I am now a peer educator for the project. I help other sex workers and let them know about this clinic where they can receive healthcare from people who will not judge them. They too have the opportunity to learn some new livelihood skills, giving them the chance to earn money in other ways than selling sex.’

This is one of the twenty-four, real-life stories highlighting how IPPF's work is having a real impact in the lives of people around the world. 'In A Life' is available at: http://www.ippf.org/en/Resources/Reports-reviews/In+a+life+2010.htm