Sextortion: That's the threat for women who are simply trying to buy clean water

Sextortion: That's the threat for women who are simply trying to buy clean water July 25, 20267:59 AM ET By  Raul Roman ,  Rafe H. Andrews ,  Camille Sachs Zubedah Hassan, 32, at home in Kibera. She works as a champion for the Stop Sex for Water program, encouraging women and girls to speak out if they face sexual violence from water vendors or are groped or peeped on in public bathrooms. "The main problem is poverty," she says. "A girl tries to save money on water by doing favors for a vendor. Another challenge is drought. You find schoolchildren waking up very early to go and look for water and being raped along the small paths they take." Nick Parisse for NPR hide caption toggle caption Nick Parisse for NPR Early one morning, Saly Amutwayi unlocks the door to her small hair salon. Inside, the walls are painted a faded blue, with posters of braided hairstyles curled at the edges. The salon is in Kibera, the African continent's largest slum, just a few miles from central Nairobi, Kenya's capital and largest city. Before clients arrive, Amutwayi speaks quietly with her friend Mariam Hassan. Like many women in Kibera, they are responsible for collecting water for their households — a task that can take hours each day. And like many women in Kibera, both say they have experienced sexual violence while trying to get it. Sponsor Message "When there is no water," Amutwayi says, "everything becomes dangerous." In Kenya's informal settlements — densely populated neighborhoods where residents have no legal title to the land they live on, and which the state has largely left without formal infrastructure like piped water — residents rely on private vendors who control access to water and set prices. Rights groups say that in places like Kibera, this dependence has created conditions in which women who cannot afford water face harassment, assault or coercion — including pressure to exchange sex for water, a practice known as "sextortion." Saly Amutwayi styles M...