A young snack vendor has opened up about an unexpected occupational hazard that has nothing to do with slow sales or bad weather, rather, the men who buy from her.
According to the vendor, nearly every transaction comes with the same unwanted bonus, a customer trying to get her phone number. “Everybody that buys from me wants my number,” she said in a video that has since caught attention online.
When she tells them she already has a boyfriend, rather than back off, many of them push further, questioning why any boyfriend would “allow” a woman as attractive as her to be out hawking on the streets in the first place.
It doesn’t stop there. Some customers, she says, go a step beyond mere curiosity, hinting that if given the opportunity, they would rather take full financial responsibility for her, so she wouldn’t need to hawk at all.
On the surface, it might sound like generosity. In reality, it reflects a familiar and uncomfortable pattern many young women in informal trade face daily, strangers assuming that a woman’s appearance is an invitation, and that her independence is something to be “corrected” rather than respected.
Her account has resonated widely online, with many using it to highlight the everyday harassment female traders and hawkers endure simply while trying to earn an honest living.
Watch the video HERE.
