(This
article was originally published in 2005)
This...is
London. Seen
from above, double-decker buses look like giant red beetles and pedestrians
like ants. Eager to reach Heaven - like the fated Tower of Babel
- is Big Ben. Elsewhere, the Tower
Bridge doth bestride the Thames like a colossus. Further on, Buckingham Palace
clings tenaciously to the fading vestiges of the once-mighty British
Empire. Meanwhile, the London Eye watches in stony silence. Below
street level, the London Underground shuttles thousands of commuters back and
forth. High above, an unrewarding grey sky presides over the world's most
famous city.
Meet
Panther (not her real name, that would be ridiculous). She's a Black girl from Mombasa, the dreamy
holiday capital of Kenya.
In her mid-twenties, she's slim, dark, with large fiery eyes set in a rather
angular head from which luscious red-painted lips pout at the world. Sexy she
certainly is, and it helps in her line of work because she peddles sex in London town. Oh, and
business is good. Panther averages £1000 per week (over Kshs.100,000). She is
so busy that her two mobile phones hardly ever stop ringing, even on Wednesday
which is her "off day". On Wednesday, she gets to shop at Harrod's and
other choice places, eat at posh restaurants and spend time with her
six-year-old daughter. Believe it or not (God, I sound like the host of Ripley's), Panther told her daughter
exactly what she does for a living and is neither ashamed nor apologetic. In
fact, Panther is quite brazen. She almost made conservative patrons choke on
their food when she blurted out, "I need my White meat!" during an
interview with a magazine (She only sleeps with White men). But how did a young
girl from far-off Kenya
come to be selling sex in the city?
Let's find out.
Panther
was an innocent country maiden until the White men came for her. I tell a
lie - she's a sex freak who's been posing topless since she was fourteen.
Growing up in Mombasa,
she met a British soldier who brought her back to Cool Britannia as his wife.
Before long, she snapped up an offer to pose nude and spread-eagled for a
steamy magazine. The photos were an instant hit and she started
"modelling" behind her husband's back. As her fame grew, so did the
risk of exposure and it wasn't long before one of the guys at the barracks
showed her husband a nude centrefold of her. Chaos reigned that night as the
military man beat Panther black and blue. She reported the matter to the police
and started a court case but never saw it through. Interestingly, she reckons
that instead of beating her, hubby should have "been proud" of her
(Go figure.) She left hubby, found a place a train-ride away from London and continued
turning men on for a living. Now an underground celebrity, it wasn't long
before the people of her sleepy neighbourhood were enlightened by a nude
magazine spread of her which was pinned to the wall of her local pub. From that
time onwards, the beery men there would get erections that would put Big Ben to
shame whenever she breezed in. Women scrawled obscenities across the photo.
"It's always the women who have a problem," Panther argues,
"because they know they can't compete. The minute a woman sees her husband
talking to me, the claws come out". For now, Panther is a happy hooker.
She has a new White boyfriend who knows her trade and she lives in the lap of
luxury.
But
Panther isn't the only Black girl "on the game". British males appear
to relish the thrill of having sex with exotic women and ebony skin ranks very
high in the takings. On 22nd
August 2003, a Kenyan newspaper revealed that for decades, numerous British troops had been having sexual liaisons with local Kenyan women (About 3,000
British soldiers are deployed to Kenya for training every year). The liaisons included ordinary dating, sex with prostitutes - and is some cases - rape. Many of these women have mixed-race children. Through a London-based lawyer,
the complainants have been seeking justice but, so far, without much luck. Now,
prostitutes avail themselves to "Johnnies" (British soldiers) even if
it means travelling from Nairobi
to smaller towns like Nanyuki and Mombasa.
In Simon Nye's famous comedy
series, Men Behaving Badly, one
character mused, over a beer, that "the thing with your Mediterranean bird
(girl) is that her sexual urges have been gently brought to the surface by the
(warmth of) the sun" whereas "your British bird, bless her, has spent her life
(all wrapped up) freezing at a bus stop: she's in no position to open up
sexually." If that's the case, then it's no wonder that foreign girls London very attractive.
There
is a time to live and a time to die. For the high class foreign-born sex
queens, this is the time to live: I'm talking plush homes, ridiculously fat
bank accounts, cars that could make you weep with envy, designer clothes, and
any other luxury available on the third rock from the sun. Which is hardly
surprising in a country that spends more on prostitution (£770,000,000 per
year) than at the movies (£250,000,000 per year). In fact, "the game"
is hardly a newsworthy topic, unless someone frightens the horses (Like the
time actor Hugh Grant was caught with a Black hooker in his car). Recently, a
Kenyan-born woman known as Anne O'Brien became a victim of her own success and
ended up in Southwark Crown Court facing charges of "controlling
prostitutes". To paraphrase rapper Ma$e, she was crucified for "sex
in the city".
Her story:
The
petite Anne O'Brien was born Hannah Wambui in Karura forest (near Nairobi city)
where her parents were squatters (landless people). She got her basic schooling
at Uthiru Primary School in Uthiru, a crime-prone
area of Nairobi.
On completing school she worked beside her mother, selling vegetables at a
market stall, before leaving for the UK. Less than two years later,
Wambui married Irishman Patrick O’Brien and settled in Ireland but not
for long. Wanderlust and the lure of big money took her to London where she
joined the flesh trade. She changed her name to "Nancy" (She was
forever changing names and still goes by various aka's). Before long, became a
well-paid vice girl in London brothels. She later moved to Park West Apartments
in Edgware Road
to work in a brothel owned by a fellow Kenyan, Ms McDowall from Naivasha.
Living in the fast lane, the two Kenyans later relocated to Baker Street, where McDowall set up
another brothel - Emma’s Escort Agency. After working for McDowall for several
months (raking in about Kshs.8,000 per hour) O’Brien moved out and started her
own operation in Paddington, West London, in
1997. She provided a procession of call girls to her male clients, some as
young as fourteen. She also employed "card boys" to post thousands of
nude pictures of her girls, contact information supplied, in London’s public phone booths (a common way
for London
hookers to advertise themselves). The Force, as Star Wars fans might say, was
with her and the business grew at a premium.
O'Brien
paid over £1 million in cash for her upmarket Kensington property which had a
penthouse that conjured up memories of Penthouse
magazine. It also has a dungeon for those who like a little pain with their
pleasure (Me, I'll have a nice Catholic girl with all the trimmings and mustard
on the side). Customers were given a "take-away sex menu" offering
every kind of sexual pleasure under the sun, with prices starting at £250
(Kshs.40,000) per hour. Her 24-hour call-girl service had three shifts of
prostitutes from Europe, Asia
and Mother Africa. "She was ruthless and exceptionally greedy,"
revealed Ruth Nyambura, a Kenyan girl who worked for O'Brien. "A very
aggressive woman whose success knows no boundaries…That is how she made her
fortune."
Sweet
was the smell of profit. O’Brien stuffed £1.6 million (Ksh 224 million) in 27
bank accounts under the company names, Marble Arch Services, Anne Hair And
Beauty, and Dream Girl Creations. She paid £487,000 for a four-storey building
in CrickleWood in North West London. Her personal profit was £1,200 (over
Kshs.120, 000) per week. She bought her mother back in Kenya two matatus (public service vehicles)
christened “Dream Girl” (after her escort agency) and a mansion worth Kshs.7 million.
Too
successful to be remain secret, O'Brien's operation came under investigation.
Detectives from Scotland Yard paid her a visit. They asked some penetrating
questions and probed deep into her assets. Newspapermen all over the Land of Hope and Glory each dedicated several
inches to O'Brien and her girls. She was arraigned in Southwark Crown Court
where a jury found her guilty on three counts of controlling prostitutes,
between October 10, 2003
and April 15, 2004.
She was briefly jailed and later put on community service.
The
O'Brien affair sent tremors across Kenya, bringing the sex trade into
the limelight once again. 'This woman said to be selling natural resources in England is my
constituent,' said Kabete MP Paul Muite who is a lawyer by profession.
'Prostitution is not prohibited in England. What is prohibited is
living on earnings of immorality.' Meanwhile, O'Brien's mother rushed to her
daughter's defence, saying that O'Brien was a Christian and had no truck with
prostitution. She simply owned a highly successful Hair Salon. (Yeah, right -
and Bill Clinton didn't have sex with "that woman, Monica Lewinsky".)
Side-stepping
the issue of morality, I find O'Brien guilty on two counts: Exploiting children
and being greedy. In fact, had she not been such a money grabber, she would
probably have flown under the radar. But because she made money her god and
worshipped at the altar of the almighty dollar, she not only did jail time but
lost ALL her wealth, including the cash in the 27 bank accounts. What was the
message from the movie Rush Hour 2? - "GREED WILL IMPRISON US ALL"
I
have side-stepped the issue of morality because prostitution - aka "the
selling of natural resources" - is one hard nut to crack. History records
that prostitution was humanity's first profession. Before there were lawyers
and doctors, there were prostitutes. Before there were soldiers and spies,
there were prostitutes. The sex trade is unlikely to fade away in London as elsewhere.
UK's unending high-profile sex scandals show the lengths to which ‘decent’
citizenry will go to fulfill their sexual desires. London, brace yourself for
the girls from Africa.
God
save the Queen.
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