Sex For Money

A big question when you consider the circumstances… No food, no water, and you are the sole provider for yourself, your brother and your grandmother. You live at the base of a mountain range in a home built of sticks and mud which is no bigger than a typical room in any North American’s home. Your mother died a few years back of AIDS and you too are infected with this deadly disease. You are only 22 and you dropped out of school freshman year due to being pregnant. Add on top of that the fact that your 2 year old child died recently of sickness as well. Some days you cannot even get out of bed because you are sick, mostly sick from having no food at all. 

When I asked my new Swazi friend, whose life is characterized by all of the characteristics above, where they bought food she plainly said they don’t. They do not buy food. They do not have any money for food. Even if they did have money for food it is over 4 kilometers to the nearest paved road and even further to buy food. That is a long way to walk when you are starving, sick and it is almost 100 degrees outside. The Anti-Retroviral pills that help suppress the effects of HIV are available to my new friend but she must walk the 4 kilometers to the road and catch public transportation another 30 kilometers to the clinic to get the pills. She cannot even afford to buy food let alone the 60 Emalangeni (a little less than 10 dollars) for the transportation.

I cannot even imagine how this young woman feels daily. When she is sick she has nowhere to go. No comfortable bed or air conditioning. She has a reed mat that she lays on under the shade of a small tree outside her home. No food, no comfort, nothing! 

As I sat on the reed mat, that she had laid sick on the day before, I questioned what I would do in her situation. There are very few jobs in Swaziland, especially around where she lives. She does not have enough education to get a good job anyway. Add on to that she is sick a few days a week, how could she keep a job? She already has HIV so the risk of that is gone. Why not sell your body?

Are you enraged? Does everything inside of you scream NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! That is NOT RIGHT!!!

Have you ever been days or weeks without food?

Have you ever been so sick you would do anything to feel better? 

Consider it… Sex equals MONEY!!! 

I am really not sure what I would do in her situation.

She says she believes in God and goes to church, but is that enough when a valley of death lies all around you?

Not even your neighbor has food to feed you, they too are starving.

It is easier to say God is my provider when I have never had to suffer from days and days of hunger pains. It is easier to say God will provide when I have never had to suffer from a disease like HIV. How can you rely on God as your provider when no one has anything around you at all? 

Faith is what my new Swazi friend has. Faith in the unseen God. Faith in God as her provider even when she is feeling sick and hungry. Faith in a healing God who has yet to heal her of HIV. Faith is her life. She knows there is something so much bigger than herself who created all of this. She is confident that her heavenly father loves her and knows her situation.

I still cannot answer the question what I would do in her situation but I hope I would have the faith to trust in the King of Kings as my provider, protector, healer and Father. What would you do in her situation