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    The Dark Secret Of Lake Malawi: Trading Sex For Fish

    Along the lakes of Malawi and Kenya, men catch fish and women sell the fish. But there's a controversial practice that's part of the business.
    by Marc Silver Jun 28, 2019 6 minutes
    A fisherman's boat makes its way across Lake Chilwa in Malawi. A large portion of Lake Chilwa dries out every year, and the fishing industry disappears along with it. Most fishermen then head to Lake Malawi, where there is fishing year-round.

    "Sex for fish."

    That unlikely phrase is used in some lakefront communities in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world where men catch the fish and women sell the catch to local customers.

    In Malawi, for instance, a woman may take a fisherman's catch and promise to pay him once she's made her sales. Only she might have trouble selling all the fish. So she might pay off what she owes for the fish by engaging in a sexual encounter.

    Either the man or the woman "just suggests, let's have sex as a way of compensating," says Benjamin Kachikho, a project officer with the Malawi office of the Timotheos Foundation, which focuses on social issues such as education about HIV.

    Or if the supply of fish is low because of overfishing, several women may vie for a fisherman's catch — and transactional sex may be used as a bargaining point.

    The practice is "longstanding and quite engrained as, which has worked to address this issue in Kenya.

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