Sex workers show you the slums

Perched on a low wall near the famous Wenceslas Square in the historic heart of Prague, Lada sniffs, wipes her nose on a sleeve and looks into the distance to gather her thoughts.

Every Friday, this 54-year-old sex worker who squatted at the central station for a long time takes tourists on a tour of the underbelly of the Czech capital, with its bustling nightlife in the 1990s.

“At least my wasted life can be useful. It’s a relief for me, a way to rehabilitate myself, to be able to share my life lesson,” she told AFP on the sidelines of the tour. Lada, who did not give her last name, is one of six guides working for the Pragulic association, which seeks to combat prejudice about the 4,000 officially registered homeless people in the city of 1.3 million of inhabitants.

Like similar initiatives elsewhere in Europe, Pragulic, launched twelve years ago, “tries to open the eyes” of visitors and show them that we can “very quickly find ourselves on the street”, explains at AFP its communications manager, Petra Jackova.

While offering the homeless “the opportunity to reintegrate society”, she adds, as a “kind of therapy allowing them to regain their memory, some having buried entire parts of their lives”. Several of them have gotten back on their feet after paying off debts, but Lada, who lost everything to drugs and slot machines, still has a long way to go.

Although she receives 400 Czech crowns (16 euros) per visit, she still sells her body to make ends meet. “I only do it when I need to buy laundry detergent or cat food,” explains the guide, who is a lesbian. “I’m going there mechanically,” she says. “Mentally, I don’t last more than 20 minutes.”

His fate resembles many others. A single mother at 17, she first entrusted her son to his mother and left her small hometown to go to Prague. “I was young and stupid. But I wanted to live,” she says. Two years later, she fell into prostitution and spent three decades in drugs, working in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Until finding yourself on the street after trying the syringe.

Over the course of her ordeals, she developed bipolar disorder which landed her in a psychiatric hospital fifteen times. Detoxified for four years, this passionate reader would now like to leave prostitution.

Among the twenty tourists who listened to him, Petra Weidenhofferova, who gave Lada a tip at the end of the visit paid 14 euros, said she was surprised by his total sincerity. “You might think she’s ashamed, but she doesn’t hide anything” about her story, she notes. Another evening, in front of the central station, Roman Balaz, 55, jovially welcomes a group of students. “I am your ticket to an underground world,” shouts the energetic pony-tailed guide.

Growing up in an orphanage, this former baker first tried drugs at age 32, following a breakup with his boyfriend. He also began prostitution before finding himself without a stable home for nine years.

The fifty-year-old takes visitors to see a couple living under a bridge, where he himself once slept. Visitors take the time to ask questions and then, encouraged by Roman Balaz, give a few crowns to eat. For their guide, this work is “a mission”. He has no regrets: “My life is as it is,” he says.

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