She rises, disheveled, out of her makeshift mattress and idly puts her clothes on. He hands her money. No words are exchanged as he leaves. This is not a scene from a movie or an excerpt from a novel, but rather a reality experienced by many Egyptian women who turn to prostitution as a source of income. “I got used to it and the need to earn money makes me disregard everything else,” said Abeer, a saleswoman by morning and a sex worker by night. Abeer would pick up clients either at the supermarket she works in or from the streets she lives around the area she lives in. “I started working as a sex worker when my colleague at work proposed I sleep with a client, and I accepted because her offer was tempting,” Abeer said glumly. Most clients lavish sex workers with gifts, clothes and money if they like them, she added. Abeer’s story bears all the hallmarks of the socio-economic trauma that pushes women into the downward spiral that leads them to sell their bodies. She was involved in a physical relationship with a Christian man, one…
