My husband is my pimp

Dear Pastor,

I have been married for four years. I am 28. I do not have children. My husband has two children with two different women.

I am not a professional woman. Growing up, I never liked school. I have two brothers; they loved school. Both of them are older. They have good jobs.

One of my brothers had a girlfriend and she and I did not get along. I had some friends and they didn't work; neither did I. I used to go out with them.

They kept men, and that is how they lived. I started to do that too. At first, they introduced me to a couple of the guys they were selling sex to.

By the time I was 21, I became so good in 'doing the streets'. I told my mother that I was working at a club.

I gave her the name of the club. I would leave home in the evening and go back home early the next morning.

My mother didn't question anything. My brothers knew that I had become a prostitute. My father didn't care what I did for a living.

I met a man who was working with an American company. After he paid me for having sex with him, he came back looking for me and I went to live with him.

He asked me to marry him and I did. He became ill and things became very hard with us. He encouraged me to go back to my old job of prostitution.

He got clients for me. Some of them were his friends. He said he did not feel bad about it.

One of them is now encouraging me to divorce him. I can't tell him what his friend is encouraging me to do. He is 59.

I always remember that he helped me to live in a good neighbourhood. Nobody in this area knows that I am a prostitute. I need your help. Please, tell me what to do.

B.G.

Dear B.G.,

It is not unusual for some men to en courage their women, their girlfriends and wives to engage in prostitution. Some women have had to sell their bodies to support their boyfriends and husbands. These men act as pimps.

Many women have been physically abused when they resist carrying out the order from pimps. Some women toil for hours on the street and bring all the money to the men. And if they were to keep back any, they are beaten.

A certain man who calls the 'Dear Pastor Show' regularly told us that he has two women under his control and finally, he admitted that he is a pimp. He was very proud of it. We know that there are lots of men in Kingston who pimp their women. In fact, whenever girls are seen on the street, experienced men know how careful they have to be, because the pimps are not far away.

Some of them place themselves in positions where they can see the women and they know what is going on.

That is why when some women who are working on the street stop cars, they tell the men exactly where they should go.

TAKEN OFF THE STREETS

It is not surprising to me, therefore, that your husband plays this role. He knows that he took you off the streets and you do not have any education.

You were not in a position to get a good job, but you are good in selling sex. He knows that both of you could live comfortably by what you earn per week.

So, he is quite prepared to share you with his friends and others.

If you were very happy with the situation that you are in, you would not write to me. Therefore, I am urging you to tell your husband that there must be another way out of the situation. You cannot continue to use your body to earn a living. Try to get yourself a job, even if you have to do days' work.

Ask your brothers to help you. Offer to wash and clean, and so on, for them. Do a little buying and selling. Try and do something, but don't sell sex.

From what you said, I gather that your husband is a foreigner and that the house in which you live belongs to him. Perhaps both of you should agree to have a tenant, and that money each month would enable both of you to meet certain bills.

Look into this s uggestion and see whether it suit the both of you.

Pastor