This archive report was first published on 17 October 2019.
Published on October 17, 2019, a 70-year-old woman from Nairobi, Rosemary, has been in the sex work industry for over two decades, with a staggering claim of sleeping with over 5,000 men.
Born and partly raised in Tanzania, Rosemary moved to Nairobi in 1984, where she was introduced to the city's unforgiving life and the oldest profession: prostitution. She has never looked back since.
Her journey began when a friend told her about the well-paying nature of sex work. She recalls getting married at 16 but her husband started neglecting her after she gave birth to five children. She parted ways with her husband and became a barmaid in Musoma, Tanzania, before relocating to Nairobi.
At Gikomba, Rosemary joined other women along Digo Road, where they would wait for clients day and night and charge Sh5 for their services. The price remained the same for over five years until it rose to Sh50 and finally over Sh100 in the early 2000s, depending on the location.
Rosemary estimates that she could handle up to 40 men on a good day and between five and 10 men on a bad day. She operated on the top floor of a building along Luthuli Avenue for a year, waiting for clients, while at Gikomba, most women owned cubicles where clients were restricted to less than 20 minutes a session.
She recalls how the arrival of condoms was a nightmare since most men preferred 'leather-to-leather' and forcing a man to use protection was akin to giving him up for another sex worker. Many things have changed in the last 30 years, with young girls joining the industry and making quick money, but Rosemary is considering retirement due to the changing dynamics of the business.
She reveals that sleeping with more than 10 men for Sh50 each was a windfall, and making Sh500 in a day was the equivalent of earning about Sh5000 today. At the moment, Rosemary has temporarily hung her 'boots' since she lives with two grandchildren, but she has a similar house elsewhere to keep the business going.
Her loyal clients are the ones she started with way back, and she discloses that she has been in the field for over 20 years, even her children know it, and used to visit but when they grew up and started their families, they stopped frequenting Nairobi.
