REUTERS

DURBAN’S ladies of the night say they are fit and ready to “service” some of the 30 000 delegates converging on the city for the COP17 climate change conference which began on Monday – but a large police presence in the CBD and heavy rain has put a dampener on business for most.

However, in the suburbs, business is booming.

“You can’t really trade near the ICC or around the hotels or even in the city. Thankfully the cab drivers are bringing the visitors to us who work in Glenwood and Morningside,” said Angie (not her real name), a sex worker in Glenwood.

“It’s good when you have a lot of tourists because we do well – but it’s also not good having a big conference because there are too many policemen,” said Angie’s colleague.

Many sex workers in the Durban CBD have lamented the high police presence.

“There are horny men out on the streets every night but we can’t do anything to help them because the cops watch us and when they see us calling the men they chase us away. I wish they (the police) would leave us alone and let us work.”

“There are a lot of foreign men around looking for ladies. My business is doing well… my customers are mainly Chinese and Asian,” said a sex worker calling herself Lollipop. “I think it will get better next week, but there are a lot of police around, so the foreigners are afraid to approach us.”

At escort agencies in the Durban CBD, sex workers were hoping for a bumper week.

“We haven’t had too many of the delegates here. I think they must all be tired,” said an employee at a West Street business. “From next week I’m sure there will be a lot of action.”

Many said heavy rains had slowed business.

“It’s been bad. Have you ever seen someone doing this job eating a R10 pie? There are just no clients. It is bad, bad, bad,” said Gigi, a slightly-built 22-year-old.

The area where Florence Nzama (Prince Alfred) Street intersects with Pixley KaSeme (West) Street in downtown Durban, is one of the city’s unofficial red-light districts. Here, a war for clients is quietly waged between prostitutes who operate from within the relative safety of escort agencies and the scantily-clad girls who brave chilly weather, working the city’s streets.

Gigi and her two colleagues rent a run-down flat in the city for R2 500 a month and “service” their clients at a nearby lodge. It’s R100 per “round”, and R50 for the room – a far cry from the R660 an hour charged by the leggy, supermodel-like women at Galaxy Escort Agency, or the R400 at Sonja’s, both around the corner.

Prices have reportedly been hiked for COP17, an event yet to bear fruit for sex workers like Natasha, who works at Classics.

“The delegates are in the wrong place. Climate change is happening right here,” Natasha said. - Sunday Tribune