Life Was Improving For ‘No Sex For Fish.’ Then Came The Flood

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Alice Amonde sits on a boat on the village of Nduru Beach, Kenya. She is part of the group of women who have fought against the practice of transactional sex that was part of the fishing business. This photograph was taken in November 2019. This spring, flooding from Lake Victoria devastated the village.

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On a busy morning in November 2019, Alice Amonde stood on the boat she owns, inspecting the day’s catch.

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Transcript

In her village, and others along the lake, men do the fishing and women sell the catch. In the 1970s, a new practice arose that the women hated.

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When fishing boats would land at Nduru Beach, there was a bustle of activity. This photo was taken in November 2019. The landing area of the beach is now under water because of flooding from Lake Victoria.

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Milka Onyango stands on the fishing nets strewn across Nduru Beach in November 2019.

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Alice Amonde’s house in November 2019, before the flooding of Nduru Beach. Now only the roof is above water.

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Justine Adhiambo Obura is a leader in the No Sex For Fish program. She stands in front of one of the 30 boats that were obtained for local women with grant money, so they could own their own vessels and hire men to fish for them. The goal is to stop the practice of fishermen demanding sex in exchange for entrusting their catch to a woman fishmonger to sell.

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Naomy Akoth sits in her house.

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Cheryl Awuor stands by her house with sons Rolines (left) and Brian (right) in November 2019. Awuor is part of a community banking group: Members give money each week into a collective pot, take out loans in times of need and are occasionaly given a bonus: a goat (hers is pictured above). She hoped raising goats would help sustain her family but the flooding carried her livestock away.

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Cheryl Awuor stands by her house with sons Rolines (left) and Brian (right) in November 2019. Awuor is part of a community banking group: Members give money each week into a collective pot, take out loans in times of need and are occasionaly given a bonus: a goat (hers is pictured above). She hoped raising goats would help sustain her family but the flooding carried her livestock away.

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A widow who has 3 children, Awuor now shares temporary classroom quarters with Akoth and two other families.

What next?

The fishing trade that sustained many of the families of Nduru Beach (and other fishing villages) has collapsed. The women from No Sex For Fish worry that even if fishing were to become possible again, the practice of trading sex for fish would re-emerge due to the difficulty of catching fish in the weed-clogged lake.

So the refugees from Nduru Beach live in limbo. The women interviewed by NPR in September 2020 say the government has not provided support or assistance. «The only people who have been helping those who were displaced are businessmen and a few politicians, says Cheryl Awuor.

But the government says there is a limit to what it will do. «Victims of such circumstances should know that when such tragedies occur, the government only assists to save lives and not to make life comfortable for them, is what Ruth Odinga, Kisumu County director of special programs, told NPR.

According to Odinga, the victims were warned in advance to move to higher grounds but some families did not heed the warnings – although several of the women interviewed by NPR dispute this. «No, we did not receive any warnings, says Naomy Akuth. «The region has been prone to floods the last couple of years but this year it was worse.

Patrick Higdon, who administered earlier grants to No Sex For Fish from the charity World Connect, sent a field agent to Nduru Beach this fall to assess the situation.

The women told the agent they very much want to go back and pick up their fishing trade. But they need financial support to do so, they said. And they worry that more flooding is in the future.

So they are trying to think of other ways to earn their living. If fishing isn’t in the near future, the Nduru Beach refugees wonder about a dairy goats project — or growing rice on the flooded terrain.

There are «many hurdles to jump, says Higdon. But «the ideas and energy are there as ever. As is the hope for better days to come.

«I am still hopeful that fate will change for us, says Akoth, the mother of four. «The damage that we have received is immense and it will take us time to resume our normal trade. I am hoping that the water levels will reduce so that I can pick up my life again.

The NPR story about ‘No Sex For Fish’ from December 2019 won a Sigma Delta Chi award for online reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists. Let us know what you think of this follow-up story. Email [/b][b] with your feedback and ideas, with the subject line «Nduru Beach.

Maxwel Otieno Kaudo also contributed to this story.