Should you happen to be a male tourist indulging in a spot of Moroccan nightlife and not be aware of its somewhat seedier side, you could be forgiven for thinking that the cities are brimming with beautiful, single Moroccan women that just happen to find you utterly irresistible. Yet for many of these seductive women, their glamourous exteriors hide a truth that is dangerous and often stigmatised, and that many in society deem disgusting and shameful. These women, who for doubtless a variety of personal reasons, have turned to selling their bodies on the cities streets in order to make money.
Aside from a brief sighting of a ‘lady of the night’ in Soho, London when I was on a school trip there as a teenager, I had never seen a sex worker on the street or in a truck park, or anywhere else for that matter, until I happened to be travelling through Spain and into the south of France several years ago, where you couldn’t help but notice them as they stood by the side of the road in various alluring poses, awaiting trade. Prostitution in Spain doesn’t have the stigma that it has in other countries and according to some sources, using the services of a prostitute can be far less damaging to a marriage than an affair.
There is certainly a stigma attached to prostitution in Morocco, though, and despite it having been illegal since the 1970s, it is now widespread and is mainly concentrated in those cities oriented towards tourism, such as Marrakech, Agadir, Tangiers and Casablanca.
It could be argued that as long as there is a market for such a profession, then surely the sex workers are doing nothing more than meeting the needs of their clients, some of whom might fulfill their sexual appetites in other ways should those services not be on offer. I was once told, by a man, I hasten to add, that if such services weren’t readily available, those men who find it impossible to control their sexual urges might instead prey on vulnerable women in a manner that could lead to incidents of non-consensual sex taking place, i.e. rape.
I would argue that there will always be those men who are willing to pay for sex and those men who aren’t, and that a small minority of men will be involved in the sexual assaults of innocent women, a simple and sad fact of life, in my view. But whatever your personal opinion on the subject, the fact of the matter is that prostitution does exist regardless of its illegality, and there is a much darker and frightening side to it all, too.
In a conversation with a volunteer at the local public hospital who frequently encounters female sex workers infected with the HIV virus, I was told that many of the women, who for whatever reason have engaged in unprotected sexual intercourse with their clients, go on to harbour deep feelings of resentment and bitterness towards the men they contracted the virus from, and therefore have no qualms about passing it on to other clients. In other cases where married women have contracted the virus before they met their husbands, have engaged in sexual intercourse with another man while married, or may even have been raped, the shame of the disease is so great that if the women were to tell their husbands that they were HIV positive they would doubtless be expelled from the family home, and more than likely end up on the streets. So she keeps quiet and continues to have sex with her husband; it is then inevitable that he becomes infected with the deadly virus and any subsequent children that she then gives birth to are also infected.
It is clearly a vicious and never-ending cycle and, as for a solution, I’m willing to guess that until stricter measures are undertaken to prevent prostitution and find alternative ways of helping these women earn a living, or better still, educating the men who use their services, the HIV virus will continue to spread at an alarming and deadly rate.
Are you trying to lay the blame on the woman?! As if the man has absolutely no doing in it?! C’mon! Using protection goes both ways! Please quit blaming the women….URRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!!
Secondly, HIV/AIDS in Africa is usually not spread by women….this is a special case……I need for a Moroccan to comment on your thoughts/observations.
I never lay blame in anything that I write, I simply state the facts, I’m sorry that you interpreted it in a diferent way. Of course everybody will have an opinion on who is to blame, but it is a fact that some prostitutes in this country are perpetuating the spread of HIV, and of course, if there weren’t men willing to have unprotected sex with them, we wouldn’t have the problem, as I pointed out, but whoever is to blame, it is a growing problem that needs addressing. My article wasn’t about pointing the finger at anyone, if I wanted to do that I wouldn’t be able to write an article that could be published in such a magazine as it would simply be too biased and inflammatory, I am sure you can appreciate that. Men may well be at the root of the problem, but my sole intention was to highlight the problem of HIV/AIDS in Morocco. I also stated that educating men is crucial in this, that isn’t to say that I am excusing their behaviour on a lack of education, that would be naive, but we need to start teaching and showing young men to respect themselves and women. As a woman living in Morocco I am constantly faced with issues that go against my beliefs and I am often not shown the respect that I show others, but I am more than aware that I don’t know enough about many of the problems this country faces, therefore I can only write about what I know.