Why the Finance Bill is threatening to deny Nakuru sex workers their pleasure

In the midst of Thursday's protests against the Finance Bill, there was a group of about 20 women walking together. For them, apart from the issue of rejecting the Finance Bill, they had their own set of grievances that were very much on their minds.

The group of women identified themselves as sex workers from Nakuru. Their agenda was to complain about police harassment of their clients.

According to them, this has really affected their business, resulting in a decline in the number of clients.

A woman who only identified herself as Anna said that she works at ThreeWays and that there have been numerous arrests and harassment of her clients.

"Right now, especially at night, if a man passes by and even says hello to you, they are arrested and if they are not locked up, they are asked to pay a bribe of Sh300 and this is affecting us negatively," she said.

Her colleague Elizabeth agrees and wonders how she is supposed to feed her family.

"The condoms we have are not of good quality and this poses a health risk and that is why we want this to be highlighted," she said.

But Nakuru sex workers chairperson Daisy Achieng' says the police only get involved when they suspect someone is up to no good.

"The only time the police get involved is when there are individuals who may be caught on the wrong side of the law and as such they would of course arrest and detain such individuals but on the issue of harassment that is not there and I know that for a fact," Daisy said.

She says she is only aware of clients being harassed in Salgaa and Naivasha areas and it is not the police who are doing the harassment but the locals. 

"We have conducted various trainings in collaboration with various stakeholders just to create awareness and also among the girls we have trained them on how to take care of themselves and how to be their sister's keeper," she said.

Mohamed Wako, the Nakuru Town East Sub County Police Commander, says he is not aware of any incidents of harassment, but insists that it is not legal to run such businesses and that the police have the right to enforce the law in such matters.