The Women of Kenya’s Lake Victoria Reject “Fish for Sex”

October 1, 2021 CATALYST Team

In a small fishing village on the shores of Lake Victoria, women are breaking the gender roles that dominate the area. A cooperative called No Sex For Fish brings women together to source fish for themselves, without trading their bodies.

A woman carrying a bucket by her boat in Lake Victoria. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

“No Sex For Fish” is a bold name. It summarizes what the women of Nyamare have fought for. In the villages along Lake Victoria in Kenya, the fishing industry is split by gender: men do the fishing, women do the selling. Due to overfishing and environmental issues, the lake’s fish population ran low in the 1970s and the fisherman couldn’t catch enough product to supply all of the women.

In a practice the locals refer to as “jaboya,” the men offered the women a trade-off: sex for fish. The women were left without a choice. For many, their families depend on the money they earn from selling fish. To sustain their loved ones and send their children to school, the women complied. After almost 40 years of this routine, the “jaboya” practice went from exploitative to dangerous. Studies have estimated the prevalence of HIV fishing communities around Lake Victoria to be between 21 and 30 percent.

Due to the lack of economic opportunities in the area, the women of Nyamare found themselves in a situation familiar to women across the globe: a position of powerlessness in a system controlled by men. Then in 2011, a woman named Justine Adhiambo Obura led the No Sex For Fish cooperative. The women obtained 30 boats through grants from PEPFAR, USAID and the World Connect charity.

In a testimonial to the World Connect Charity, Justine said, “We are very thankful for this program; it has allowed us to become businesswomen and to control our own finances. The men have to ask us for the money. Though the business has many challenges, we keep working.” With access to their own boats, the women hired men to fish for them. Alice Akinyi Amonde told NPR she’d earn about 50 dollars a day when things were going well, but now she’s lucky if she makes 3 dollars.

In March 2020, after months of heavy rain, the water levels in Lake Victoria climbed to the highest degree in decades. The floods swamped farmland, engulfed homes and displaced thousands of people. Unfortunately, this timing coincided with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, and economic activity was put at a standstill. With no homes, no boats and no farmland, the community has been left in limbo.

The organized fishing trade that once supported the families along Lake Victoria’s shore has collapsed. In interviews with NPR in September 2020, the women from No Sex For Fish said that they worry that, even if fishing were to become possible again, the practice of trading sex would re-emerge due to the difficulty imposed by the weed-clogged lake. They also said that, while they want to go back to the trade, they’ll need financial support.

Ruth Odinga, the Kisumu County director of special programs, told NPR that “when such tragedies occur, the government only assists to save lives and not to make life comfortable for them.” With minimal assistance from the government, these women are looking for other ways to earn a living. Despite the challenges they’ve faced, the women of Nyamare are still hopeful for the future.