A Different Kind Of Pickup: Prostitutes Turn To Driving Motorbike Taxis
A group of 18 prostitutes and 17 unemployed women in Sierra Leone were trained to drive motorcycle taxis. The money was great. But now there's a big catch.
Each morning at 8, 24-year-old Mariatu Kamara puts on her jeans, jacket and bright yellow helmet. She climbs onto her motorbike and rides up the mud path beside her house in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
As she passes, children nudge one another and whisper, "That's a woman."
She parks on the edge of the main road, next to four men on bikes. This is where the motorbike taxis (locally known as "okadas") wait for their customers.
Kamara, once a prostitute, is one of the few female motorcyclists in Freetown. She was trained to ride a bike — along with 34 other women — in October 2014 through a women's empowerment program. The female riders were
