Because I Am A Girl

Updating my website mariephillips.co.uk - which is pretty awful, by the way, mostly because I designed and maintain it myself, and I'm not exactly an expert at that kind of thing, and I sort of can't be bothered, ahem... The plan is to redo it when my next book comes out ("when", not "if", ever the optimist). Well, anyway: updating it, I realised I had completely forgotten to mention that I have a new publication out and an event to support it. (That's an event in addition to the flourishing Bookswap, every third Thursday of the month at the Windsor Firestation. It's £5 to get in and I believe we are the only literary event to let you in for free if you bring a home-baked cake. But moving on.)

The piece in question is called 'Change' and you can find it in the Plan International / Vintage anthology Because I am a Girl.

(I notice Amazon are selling it at a discount. Hmm. All the profits go to Plan, so...)

'Change' is an account of my visit to Uganda to witness Plan International's work there. Without wishing to spoil the story, I was so appalled, and say as much, that Plan had to publish an official retraction straight after my piece in the book. There's a cracking review of it over here - thank you, Independent on Sunday.

What's that? You want an extract, you say? Oh god, I'm probably not allowed. But here you go, as long as you promise to buy the book. It's my first day in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, and I have been taken to visit a project which works with prostitutes there:

The streets of Kampala are not a safe place to sell sex. The women complained of rape from clients, rape from the police who periodically round them up to clean up the streets. Then there are the other risks, notably from HIV and AIDS. Condom use is not popular amongst johns in Uganda, and even if the prostitutes insist on it, it’s easy to get around the issue by insisting on sex in a dark corner and then lying about the condom. And anyway, as one pointed out: “You can get a man to use a condom but you are still a sex worker.” These are not happy hookers. The only time anybody laughed was when my Plan chaperone mentioned the Dutch model of legalised and regulated brothels, which reduced the entire group to hysterics.

The Moonlight Stars project aims to provide sex workers with healthcare - AIDS tests, condoms and so on - as well as training and financial support to help them set up their own businesses outside the sex industry, such as baking or hairdressing. But the funding has run out. So while Moonlight Stars aims to provide healthcare, financial support and training, what it actually provides is “outreach”. I asked the women what outreach is. They told me that it’s going out and telling other prostitutes about what Moonlight Stars aims to provide. It’s not my last encounter with “outreach” in Uganda. This is probably the right place to mention: outreach is cheap.

Before we left, the women asked us to give them money for the project. We explained that it doesn’t work that way, that we have to report back to Plan in London who make the funding decisions. They were not impressed. In my notes I have written: “I felt as if they were thinking: who the fuck are you and what are you here for if you’re not going to give us any money?”

Cheerful stuff, as you can see. The talk's on Thursday March 4th at Central United Reformed Church, Grove St, Bath, 6.15pm, £7 / £6 concessions, and my fellow speakers will be Deborah Moggach and Xiaolu Guo. You can get more info and buy tickets here. It should be an interesting, challenging, controversial evening. Hope to see some of you there.