COMMERCIAL SEX WORKERS
LEGALIZE PROSTITUTION: SEX WORKERS
URGE FG
By Joseph A Adudu
Saturday, 29th July,
2017
The
National Coordinator of the Association of the Nigerian Sex Workers, Amaka
Enemo has called on the Federal Government to legalize prostitution to curb the
spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Enemo
made this call while speaking with Journalists in Abuja on Wednesday at the
presentation of a report titled “Understanding
the High Risk of Urban Sexual Networks in Nigeria”.
She
said that HIV infection had continued to increase because the government
treated prostitution as a crime; adding that the law enforcement agents,
especially the Police consequently harassed sex workers and sometimes demands
sex without using condoms.
Miss
Amaka Enemo was said to have played an active and prominent role in gathering
information for the report which was compiled by the National Agency for the
Control of AIDS (NACA), the University of Manitoba, United States of America
(USA) and the World Bank.
Explaining
further on the predicament of her members, she said sex workers face violence
especially from their clients and law enforcement agents simply because sex
work is seen as a crime in our society as a result of this according to her,
the Police were in the habit of raiding the streets and brothels to arrest sex
workers and collect money from them and in the event where the ladies could not
afford money, would have to give sex in place of money adding that if the law
enforcer does not want to use condom the sex worker has to agree. She said that
it is one of the reasons why HIV is on the increase. Enemo said that in the
study, all the sex workers they interacted with confirmed the law enforcement
agents to be their biggest problem.
The
Coordinator further stated that several studies have shown that countries where
prostitution is legalize had lower cases of sexually transmitted disease while
Nigeria, where it is illegal had one of the highest rate of HIV in the world.
For these reasons, she urge the government to legalize sex work and further
urge the government not to saddle sex workers with the responsibility of paying
tax.
According
to her, “when I visited Amsterdam, I was able to visit the red light district
where sex workers work because prostitution is legal there. I have also visited
New Zealand where they have legalized sex work. When they legalize it, there
will less exploitation of sex workers and the violence will reduce”.
Enemo
also advocated the giving of proper treatment of sex workers that are infected
with HIV rather than victimizing them because according to her “an infected sex
worker could directly or indirectly infect as many as 100 people. So,
government must not hound but partner us”.
In
his remarks, the Director, Strategic Knowledge Management, NACA, Dr. Kayode
Ogungbemi said sex workers must be taken seriously since married men also
patronized them; adding that the message of use of protection must also be
taken to mega stores and other places where sexual relationships began.
He
said that the report looks at the history of casual sex, transactional sex and
commercial sex. “If we do not reach these women, the infection will continue to
spread. So, we must teach these women the use of condoms and going for HIV
tests because if we don’t do that, they will continue to spread it because even
married women patronize them” said Ogungbemi.
In
his contribution, Dr. Kalaba Green, the Country Coordinator, Centre for Global
Public Health, University of Manitoba said the exercise was funded by the World
Bank and was done in order to improve the efficiency of HIV prevention methods.
Post a Comment