A new women’s collective is helping fishmongers diversify incomes as declining fish populations lead to increased sex-for-fish requests in Malawi, writes Rabson Kondowe for Al Jazeera

For three consecutive days in October 2018, a fish monger disguised as Catherine went to Luwuchi fishing camp in Rumphi District along Lake Malawi to buy usipa.

On each occasion, the widow returned empty-handed as fishermen wanted sex with her in exchange, not money.

“I always refused, but then life was becoming harder for me and my three children. I desperately needed to make sales since the fish-selling business was my only source of income,” she says.

The next day the first fisherman demanded sex in exchange for usipa, she “had to comply”.

The fisheries sector employs more than 50 000 people and contributes at least four percent to Malawi’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to the 2021 annual economic report.

The declining fish catches due to overfishing and climate change fuel transactional sex in lakeshore districts, experts say.

“The practice is worse during the lean season around November and December when usipa catches are significantly low and competition is high,” said Fanuel Kapute, professor of fisheries and aquatic science at Mzuzu University.

Frank Nkhani, a fisher since 2012, admits that he knows many fishermen in Luwuchi who engage in transactional sex, alleging that some women also offer themselves to the fishers.

“Some don’t have the money at all, so they just say they will pay through sex,” he said.

It is challenging to determine the exact number of fishers and fish vendors who engage in clandestine sex deals. Many cases go unreported.

But the sex-for-fish puts the participants at risk of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, says Rumphi district fisheries extension worker Othaniel Duwe.

“Many fishers migrate from one fishing camp to the next. If they have the virus, they can bring it into a community or they can be infected during their travels,” he said.

Sex for fish

Catherine dreamed of becoming a teacher, but she quit secondary school when she became pregnant at 21. Two years later, she began the fish-selling business.

In 2017, her husband, a clinical officer, died from malaria, leaving Catherine as the sole breadwinner. She felt helpless.

“When I didn’t make any sales or buy fish from the fishermen, my husband would take care of us,” she said. “After he died, I couldn’t stop selling fish because it was the only way I could make money.”

In 2018, she began engaging in transactional sex just to access fish more easily and at a lower price.

That ended last year when Kate Mwafulirwa introduced her to Titukulane Women’s Cooperative.

Mwafulirwa, 58, leads the one-year-old group of 30. Like Catherine, she is her family’s sole breadwinner, but for an elderly husband and seven children.

 ‘One huge family’

Mwafulirwa started selling fish in the 1980s, “when sex for fish trade was not prevalent”, she said.

Despite her refusal, even at her age, Mwafulirwa sometimes faces these “very embarrassing and demeaning” demands from young fishermen, she told Al Jazeera.

The cooperative, funded by USAid in partnership with Find Your Feet and other organisations, empowers women to run small businesses and diversify their sources of income.

“One way to combat the practice is to encourage women not to solely rely on fish,” says Mwafulirwa.

Titukulane members sell vegetables, fruits, maize, rice, soya beans, chickens and potatoes. They share the proceeds and have even established a village bank. The group meets twice a month to discuss financial management and savings culture, as well choose to go to the beach to buy fish.

“Instead of buying fish individually, the women now go in groups of three or four, enhancing their bargaining power and making it harder for fishers to make sexual advances on them,” said Mwafulirwa.

She hopes to reach out to more women in the village to join them.

Apart from selling fish, Catherine now earns more from selling fruits and soya beans.

“I feel like I’m part of one huge family, we support one another,” she said. “The group is surely transforming lives slowly.”

So far, the US-funded project has established 33 women cooperatives in all lakeshore districts.

“Apart from economic empowerment, we also want these women to be aware that sex for fish is exploitation, and they must rise up against it,” says Find Your Feet programme manager Sain Muskambo.

The Gender Equality Act prohibits sexual harassment with a penalty of K1 million and a five-year jail term, but it has barely been enforced and information is hardly disseminated in rural areas.

In 2016, government approved the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy, to regulate activities in the sector.

However, Friday Njaya, a director at Malawi’s Department of Fisheries, admits that the policy does not adequately consider gender as the beach village committees remain male-dominated.

“Women in fishing still have inferior roles, further leaving them prone to gender-based violence including sex for fish,” he said.

To fix the gap, Njaya says the department and various non-governmental organisations encourage women to join more cooperatives and district councils to make by-laws that ban the selling of fish in the floating shelters on the lake and at the beach.

“We want to upgrade the value chain by constructing market sheds so that women can go buy fish there and not at the beach where they are susceptible to transactional sex,” he said.

Kapute emphasised that women groups may help change mindset change.

For Catherine, sex-for-fish is history.

She is grateful to not have contracted any diseases, even though she remains mentally scarred.

“I am just lucky … most of these fishermen like unprotected sex. They don’t care. I am ashamed,” he said.

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