true life planet

 Not appropriate for readers under the age of 13. Please have your parents read first, thanks.

This interview took place in Paris, France on August 30th, 2009, at a hair salon being run out of a kitchen in a sixth floor apartment in a neighborhood on the edge of Paris…

I met Mea during a political protest march through the Latin Quarter of Paris. The march was a protest organized by illegal immigrants, and Mea was one of the participants.

Mea interested me because she had worked in the sex trade in Europe and had recently managed to leave this kind of work. She was part of a group of women who help each other financially and emotionally so that they can stop working as prostitutes and get income in other ways.

We arranged that I could interview her for this blog if I agreed to get a haircut! As she was just learning to cut hair. I showed up at a apartment at the specified time, and after meeting her sister in law and many children, we went into the apartment, which was full of clients waiting or getting their hair cut. Everyone was from Africa but me.

I was surprisingly calm about being there-in spite of being in some ones’ home whom I did not know-because I was accompanied by two students who had been at the march and were going to help translate from french into English.

An amazing afternoon was had by all. I got this interview, and I got..the shortest haircut of my life. I had none left by the time she was done.!

Mea is not her real name, and all details of location and so on have been left out to protect her and her work.

Thanks for the help of Geoff  E. and Michelle C., without which this interview would not have been possible.

Me: Let’s start off with who you are, your name, how old you are..?

Mea: You can call me Mea, but that is not my real name. I don’t know how old I am..I think..maybe..25 years old.

Me: Can you tell me where you are from and how you came to live in Paris?

Mea: I am from the Ivory Coast, but I left there and lived in Senegal when I was a child. So, I am from Senegal, now! (laughs)

Me: And how did you come to live in Paris?

Mea: Well..I wanted to go to Europe. We had..nothing..in Senegal. My parents are dead, they got sick and died. So it was me and my sisters and my brother. I was working in Senegal. I was a sex worker. I didn’t like the work, but it paid and we ate. I didn’t like the work…but alot of people came over to Senegal, and they wanted women.

I got tired of that life. So we decided to save the money and send me and my sister to Spain. You could pay the guy and they would take you over on a boat.

It was..dangerous. But, we thought we could make enough money to live better, maybe send my brother to school.

Me: So you went to Spain on a boat? What kind of boat? What was it like, the journey?

Mea: It was very expensive, first of all. My sister and I had to work alot to pay for the passage, and  even my little brother worked, selling candy. Then after we paid them, they said at the last minute that we hadn’t paid enough money. But we had paid enough, that was untrue.

So they said if we had sex with them, they would let us go on the boat. They were very cruel and mean men. They were very cruel to my sister and I, doing many things to us for many days. We had no choice. We could not look at each other afterwards.

The boat was very small. Almost..a raft. I mean to say..it was a boat, but not a very nice boat. It had way to many people on it.

We were very tired and we were badly beaten when we got on the boat. My little sister was sick, too.

Me: What else do you remember?

Mea: It was night when we got on the boat. It was still dark. None of us knew what to do… we were very quiet, very quiet.

I remember that there was only a little bit of water. There was supposed to be more water for us, but we said nothing.

The journey took a long time. Too long and..

People got sick and some died. My little sister died, too.

Me:What happened when she died?

Mea: Well..they put her over the side into the sea. It was very hard for me. Other people, too. Everyone was very scared, all we could see was ocean and we were very frightened.

You finally arrived in Spain. Let’s talk about what happened once you got there..

Mea: We got there in the night time. I was so hungry, so thirsty, so tired. But I had been promised  a job and the guy on the boat took me to meet  a  man who was supposed to give me this job working in the field. It was olives, they had said.

But when I got there, the two men raped me again and put me in a little room, where they kept me for several days.

I knew then that there was no job picking olives, that it was a lie.

I stayed in Spain, working in the room, with whatever men they brought there, for over two  months.  I tried to get away several times but it was impossible, everyone helped them bring me back. I got beaten everytime I left.

They came one day and told me that I had to pay off the rest of my passage on the boat. I did not argue, because I did not want them to beat me or worse.  They brought me alot of very pretty clothes and they told me that I would be goign to Amsterdam to work there.

Me: Amsterdam? What was that like?

Mea: It was better in some ways than where I had been before, but I had to work all day and all night. I hardly slept, because the boss wanted a certain amount of money every day and I had to pay him. The clients there..they wanted everything , they wanted me to do everything…things we did not do in Senegal. I felt very..bad about myself there.

But he did give me some clothes and I did manage to send money home one time.  Also, it was ..shocking to me..how much money the men had. they had so much money! And we had nothing in Senegal.

But, how did you end up in Paris?

Mea: I met a man, a nice man..he asked me to come to Paris, and he paid my boss for me. I was going to come and live with him. I was so happy! He was..not always nice to me, but it was better than the street. He was very violent sometimes.

But I learned English when I lived with him, so now I speak English!

Then  when I came here, he became very strange and one day he told me I had to leave. I do not know what happened. He would not let me leave with anything but some clothes.

I had no money, no papers, no nothing.

So I…went back to working the streets.

You went back to working as a prostitute?

Mea: Yes..I ..did not know anyone. I knew nothing. I had to make some money. I had to pay for  a room to stay in. I tried to go where there were English speaking tourists, since I spoke some English.

I was doing that work, for about one year, when I started to get to know more of the other women working.

Did you have a lot in common with the other sex workers?

Mea: Yes..I did. there were alot of women who had come over, like me. There were alot of women from Africa, from Senegal, from the Ivory Coast, from North Africa. We had all been bought and sold at some point.

When did you decide to leave sex work?

Mea: When I saw myself one day in a store window..and I didn’t recognize myself. I looked so old and tired, so unhappy. I thought, there has to be something else I can do.

I started by giving condoms out to the other workers, and by telling them that I was going to rent a nice apartment and that they could come and visit me there. If they..ever wanted to talk.

I worked for another year, and I found a place to rent with some friends..good people. It was through them that I met my (common law) husband!

You met your husband while you were still working?

Mea: Well, yes, I did! But he didn’t know me, really. Then he found out what I was doing for work, and he said to me that if I wanted to find other work, he would help me. We were friends then. And..he knew I would never do that kind of work, if I could have done something else.

Tell me about your husband.

Mea: He is from Senegal, too. he is a very kind person, works hard to help others..he is the one who got me interested in rights.

Rights?

Mea: Yes…my rights. Because I am a person. That I have rights as a person.  I did not know what he was talking about at first…but then when I understood it…I felt so good after talking to him, I felt hope. That this..was for me..not just other people. That I was important. I really believed this, for the first time. It was not a story, it was..true.

I felt very..bad about myself, up until then. The work, it was hurting me.

So I left my work and he helped me get a job cleaning  a office.

Are you cleaning offices now?

Mea: (laughs)..No, I wasn’t very good at it! I had never been very good at that kind of work. But now I am working here (looks around and gestures at hair salon) I am very good with hair.

Are you doing any other kind of work?

Mea: Yes. My main work, for which I am not paid, is to work with the African women that come here or are brought here to be sex workers. I help them, I listen to them, I give them what they need. I help them leave the work, too. This makes my sun shine.

It is very hard work..I sometimes work at night, on the street..and sometimes they come to my apartment. I had a girl there this past week, the man wanted to have sex with her and another girl, and he gave them drugs. Then he didn’t pay them afterwards, got violent. She came to my apartment, very sick..

Do most of the women you work with have terrible stories to tell? Or, are some happy with the work and the money?

Mea: I have never met a woman who wanted to be doing that kind of work. Maybe they would do it for the money for a little while and be happy, but then something bad happens and they are frightened. It’s very dangerous work.

What would you say if someone told you that there is nothing wrong with prostitution or with bringing over women from other countries for men here to have sex with? I have heard people validate the sex trade saying it gives women income…what do you think?

Mea: That is all untrue. I mean, it is not true that it is good to have women doing this work, because if you asked them, they would rather be doing anything else. Also, they are brought here against their will sometimes and the men who have sex with them, they don’t know that. Maybe it does give women income..but if my country was a country where I could work and have decent work, I would be there right now. Not here.

Also, the women who do the work..they are in danger. Everyday. And..many are beaten or raped or worse. Some have stories like mine.

I want people to realize that they need to help us women in our countries make money…give us things we can do to make money so we can survive, and not have to do this kind of work.

Maybe people say these things because they have never done this kind of work, and they are just looking at it from their side of things..they want sex workers but they don’t want to think about us as people, that we have rights.

Sex work is no life.  It is death. It destroys the woman.

You’ve also been very involved with the rights of illegal immigrants in France. Let’s talk about that.

Mea: yes, I have been involved in that since I met my husband, although I had heard about it before I left the sex work. I heard about it the first time through people who would come and talk to us, right there on the street, when we were working. These people talked to us like people! I liked that. They never wanted anything…

I listened to them talk and I went to a meeting, and then by the time I met my husband , we had this in common. That we both were working for the rights of illegal immigrants here in the country.

Why do you think the rights of illegal immigrants are important?

Mea: (laughs) What a question! I think the answer is..how can they not be? How can they not treat us as people? Yet that is what they do, everyday. We live in a state of fear.

There are many people who are so afraid they will get deported that they don’t go anywhere. They are so scared. People die or go missing after they get sent home.

But we do alot of jobs they wouldn’t do..and we are always having to come up with ways to earn money, to live, to eat.

It is a tiring life.

What would you want to tell the  people of the world, if you could only tell them one thing?

Mea: I am your sister. Love me, love your brother–that is enough.

Well said, Mea.

Mea helps over 40 women a week in Paris who are forced into a life of prostitution due to either coercion or economics. Yet, if they could get legal work–and were allowed , even temporarily, to reside in France–they would not be doing this kind of work.

Please, consider this the next time you come across someone in your country who is residing there illegally.

gg

Tags: 1

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 at 10:19 am and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.