ILLICIT TRADES
In the first part about Gulu dames, I decried the Gulu elites’ bashing of prostitution as a viable economy. I recognized that prostitution is a blight in our societal conscience. I took exception of child prostitution and attempted to explain with many difficulties, the genesis of child prostitution as the total
breakdown of our social safety nets. Most of these maladies of society are exacerbated in the
post-conflict Acholi.
I also paled off any pretense that Acholi that we know now, is as conservative, morally, as the Acholi we knew before the war. In this section, I guide my readers to what we should do. I start by enumerating the inevitability of societal evolution.
Far from Gulu, the other worlds have evolved spectacularly within the liberalised economic doctrine.
They have developed liberal markets where every item that money can buy, are sold. With such a
market, many of our vulnerable persons become commodities. Children become commodities,
not just for sex, but for labour, organs, research, trafficking, objects of luscious fetish, and so on.
A researcher, Kevin Bales concluded that these humans – without a proper and firm foundation
in a protective society, become disposable human beings. The children are used and recycled and
sometimes disposed of in mass graves.
An old report by the International Organization of Migration (IOM) revealed that children and
young women from East Africa, including Uganda, are being enticed by a mere plate of cooked
food and trafficked into the global line of human sex trafficking. These are serious concerns that
we should not turn into our past time gossip subjects.
Clarity
I am not saying that prostitution is good. I am saying that it is despicable. Prostitution is a sign of
societal failures to provide equal opportunity for all. I am reiterating that prostitution is our
reality of a failed society. I am saying that by spending time lambasting the people who earn a
living as prostitutes, maybe someone should begin to understand them beyond their trade or that
identity – to look at them as daughters, parents, and citizens of value in a perverted society.
Had it not been for COVID-19, and had it not been for the hunger associated with the quarantine
to force these women to place our leaders at “pussy point” as Bosmic Otim said, very few people
could have known that prostitution is marketable in Gulu. We now know that the demand for
prostitutes is high. We also know now that the most profitable consumers are Gulu local leaders.
A condition must exist for an event to emerge.
I am saying that these women lacked, and still lack opportunities for alternative income-
generating activities. , I am certain that we could do more for them as a society.– We could
initiate public policies that will provide a safety net for the children, make a demand for
prostitution unsavory and retrain these women into productive citizens.
Lastly, the colorful language we employ in describing prostitution is simply uncouth, violent,
dismissive, and barbaric. These people are earning a living and partaking in a sensitive sector of
the pleasure economy. They should be legalized, and their trade legitimized as work, licensed,
and therefore taxed. The taxes could be levied from designated operation chambers – brothels,
bars, stages, or hotels.
As such, the women will no longer be called prostitutes, but dignified Sex Workers with rights
and respect like all traders and workers. This group, however, becomes of the essence for public
health, thus the necessity for licensure. Society must also be careful to discern the prostitutes
from the prostituted and sex workers. This can help in identifying the Pimps, Johns, and Madams
early on. Prostitutes do it voluntarily, independently, and are perverse. The prostituted are forced,
exploited, and often mistreated – children and disempowered rural women. The sex workers
have more rights and recognition in society because of their legal status. They could even have a
Union. It is hard to find a city in the world that has settled the issue of sex-workers, prostitution and prostituted decisively. One thing we must safeguard, however, is our people from
exploitation, human trafficking, and cruel treatment. The Bishops are allowed to disagree with
me!
End.
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