ADEN, Yemen Reuters - Somali refugee Saada hates what she does but can see no other way to feed her six children β working as a prostitute in the southern Yemeni city of Aden.
Somali prostitutes gather in a slum house in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden February 7, Like many others, Saada fled to Yemen to escape the chaos, clan warfare and famine that has plagued Somalia since warlords toppled President Mohamed Siad Barre in β only to face another struggle for survival in impoverished Yemen.
She has spent 10 months in Yemen living on U. Saada gets no money from her first husband, who divorced her and went to work in Saudi Arabia. Her second husband was badly wounded in fighting in the anarchic Somali capital Mogadishu. Many more unregistered Somalis are thought to roam there, most of them hoping to move to richer Gulf countries.
The U. Alysia, another divorced Somali woman driven into prostitution, said she had paid smugglers to take her on the perilous voyage across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen. The port city of Aden has a more freewheeling atmosphere than elsewhere in Yemen, a conservative Muslim society.
While alcohol is hard to come by in the capital Sanaa, a few restaurants and beach clubs serve drinks in Aden, luring some weekend tourists from austere Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia. Together with UNHCR, the group helps victims of domestic and sexual violence and tries to educate refugees about the dangers of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
