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As the night falls, women clad themselves from head to toe and set off to their business towards... the 'red light areas'. This is not a new scene especially in Mombasa, a port in Kenya.
Nowadays, these twilight ladies (as the locals would call them) could be seen flocking the streets wearing a buibui.
Before proceeding, let's put in plain words, what a buibui is. It's a long garment, gown sort of a thing that covers a woman from head to toe just like a burqua, which is an obligatory attire worn by women in Muslim countries.
Coming back to the story, the sex workers, in Kenya have relinquished the 'age old custom' of wearing revealing attire and have adopted the buibui. Unlike prostitutes in Thailand who go out to woo their customers by revealing as much as possible. When people from media confronted them, some receded while others showed their willingness to talk, one from such a group said,
I'm better off wearing the buibui so I look respectable. I can avoid arrest. I am just trying to get some money to live on.
While another one said that the 'gown' or buibui is instrumental in hiding her identity as she has no other way to earn her livelihood. Thus, they can mingle around and get to do their daily chores without being looked at or targeted by religious vigilante.
The agony of women under the shreds of buibui
Women engrossed in the 'profession' revealed that their clients are from nearby regions than tourists and hence it becomes easier for them to access women who are in buibui, which further insinuates that buibui has become a sign of prostitution, as taken by them.
Seeing that, the phenomenon has created a stir in Muslim ridden countries because hizab or burqa is a sacred connotation of religion for them. Even the views of native Muslim women too are quite disparaging, one of them goes to the extent of discarding her buibui as it has lost all the respect associated with it. Some are also of the view that those women are not native rather are from Somalia and Ethiopia.
There is no doubt that the authorities have mounted numerous attempts to wash down the streets from prostitution but like a disease, it subsides for a while and again revamps after the phase is over.
In any case, wearing buibui by prostitutes does not mean that they do not follow Muslim religion, they may believe in 'Allah' too. In fact, wearing a buibui shows that they have no choice left except to be in the 'profession' only to earn two meals of a day.
And it is written in Muslim religious books too that 'O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them. That will be better, so that they may be recognized and not harassed. Allah (SWT) is ever Forgiving, Merciful.' [33:59]
If wearing buibui by the prostitutes spoils the name of burqua then what about those men who camouflage themselves as women in the hijab to carry out evil schemes?
We agree that 'burqa' is a sacred clad worn by women in Muslim countries as it protects them from perpetrators, here I'd like to ask, are women really safe in hijab?
