This is the story of Susan, A young woman from Bayelsa who was found working in the streets of Lagos as a prostitute.
The now retired sex worker who traded her body in exchange for money for 15 years disclosed how she got into prostitution at an early age of 17.
She started with one man a day till she transcended into sleeping with 12 to 16 men in a day.
According to her, she said that became her life so that was her job description, and she was good at it.
Susan said she never knew her dad as a child because he wasn’t in the picture. And her mum died when she was 12 years old, So she was left at the mercy of her aunt who was the only family she knew.
” When my mother passed, I had to go stay with her elder sister who was the only family I knew then. She was not welcoming as she made everyday a living hell for me. At the age of 12, I was made to wash her and her children’s clothes including her husband, and if I don’t wash it well, I had to start all over till she was satisfied with it. E no easy ooo because most times I had to do all that on an empty stomach.
And as if that wasn’t enough, her children were always bullying me.
Then to top it all, when I turned 13, her husband began assaulting me sexually. He raped me so many times till I was 15.
And no matter how hard I tried to tell my Aunty, she never believed me. Rather she’d threaten me to not tell anyone about it or she’ll send me packing.
I wasn’t going to school because she said I would only waste her money.
So when I turned 17, I couldn’t take it anymore and I had to run from her house.
I met a woman who was willing to take me in but only if I’d agree to work for her.
I didn’t ask her which type of job as I gladly accepted the offer.
The next day, she called me to go get dressed as we will be having visitors. She handed me some skimpy dress and demanded I put them on.
At first it was strange seeing some girls also living there at the time.
Well, I couldn’t run from there because I thought it was better than my Aunty’s house after all.
And that was how I was introduced into prostitution which started with one man a day.
But as time went by, the number of men I had to sleep with increased because the woman who used us to run her motel made it difficult to get a considerable amount of money as pay from her.
And with the money I made, I was able to sit for WAEC, because I really wanted to go to school, and not because I planned living another life from prostitution. I also wrote jamb and I was able to enroll in an open University. Funny enough, I was popularly known as a runs girl in my area.
So In order to cater for my school and personal needs, I had to sleep with more men in a day because the woman instigated a rule that the more men you sleep with in a day, will determine the amount of money you make.
That was the street life, so I had to learn to survive in it and even became a professional at it.
In a matter of few years, I was already sleeping with as much as 16 men a day.
That was the life for me for 15 years on the street, that was the only job I was very familiar with. Not because it was the right job, but because that was the job I became so good at, until I met a man who became so much interested in me.
Funny enough he came in as a customer the first time, but what surprised me was that he never tried to sleep with me.
He said he only wanted to buy my time. So he’ll pay me all the amount that I could have made from 16 men in a day, and we will gist till he was ready to leave. I was 32 at the time.
It continued like that for a month till he told me he was interested in marrying me.
And today I am happily married to him and blessed with 2 kids, a boy and a girl.
That was how I was saved from prostitution”
That is the story of Susan, an ex sex worker.
She said she is now living the best life and her only regret is that, she never believed in herself enough to try a better route. But she is happy that she is making amends now.