Abstract:
The COVID-19 crisis has left everyone scared and many bereaved. It has hit the most vulnerable
the hardest. The central focus of the paper is to explore the lived experiences of commercial sex
workers in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic in Menehariya Sub-city, Hawassa. A qualitative
approach and a phenomenology design were employed to explore extensive data and uncover the
hidden experiences of commercial sex workers from their perspective. A snowball sampling
technique was employed to select the study participants and 11 participants were involved in this
study. A semi-structured interview guide was used to collect data and the collected data were
analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings indicated that commercial sex workers find it difficult
to practice some of the COVID-19 protective measures (i.e., social distancing measures and
wearing facemasks) during sex work. The major challenges experienced by commercial sex
workers are social, economic, health-related, psychological, and security/safety challenges.
Personal characteristics, economic, social pressure, weak legal system, religious beliefs,
protective measures nature, and customer rejection are the challenges explored to apply the
COVID-19 precautions. The coping strategies employed are cost minimization, sharing money
with colleagues, spending time with families and friends, religious activity, contacting regular
customers, returning to relatives in the countryside, engaging in small business, and reunion with
the ex-partner. Using alternative stuff and sex position are strategies used to cope with COVID 19 protective challenges. Based on the findings, the social work interventions that promote social
justice and social change are indispensable, and social work practitioners should consider the
vulnerability of commercial sex workers in their practice settings. Consistently, all the concerned
bodies need to include the issues of commercial sex workers in the COVID-19 response efforts.
