30 October 2007
Maputo — A programme is now under way in Mozambique to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS among prostitutes.
At the beginning of this year a group of 22 women peer educators and eight health workers were trained by the NGOs PSI/Mozambique and Pathfinder International in a project entitled "100 per cent life", and since February they have been working on the ground in Maputo.
The efforts to provide health care for prostitutes (normally referred to by the politically correct euphemism of "sex workers") involves a night clinic at the health post in Maputo port, where the women can take voluntary HIV tests, and benefit from treatment for sexually transmitted disease. Those who test HIV-positive can also obtain the life prolonging anti-retroviral drugs.
Some of the peer educators have dropped out over the months.
Currently there are 16 of them and they work from Wednesday to Saturday, from 19.00 to 21.00, distributing male and female condoms to prostitutes working on some of the main avenues of central Maputo.
According to Valeriana Rufino, an official of "100 per cent life", every week each of the 16 activists distributes about 250 male condoms and 75 female condoms. The latter are given to prostitutes who have been trained in how to use them.
Data from the project show that from February to September 146,200 male and 8,880 female condoms were distributed. Written information on sexually transmitted diseases and on how to use condoms was also distributed.
The activists also try to persuade prostitutes to take HIV tests, so that they will know their status, and will take measures to avoid infection, if they are HIV-negative, or to avoid infecting others, if they are HIV-positive. They hope to endow the women with the skills to negotiate condom use with their clients.
In the seven areas covered by the peer educators, the prostitutes are mostly from the Maputo suburbs, and from the districts of Boane, Namaacha, Marracuene and Moamba. Most of them work the streets at the weekends.
Most of them are aged between 20 and 30 - but some are younger, and there are even child prostitutes as young as 12.
The peer educators say the prostitutes want to work, not on street corners, but in "appropriate places" with adequate conditions of hygiene and comfort. They also want security, since they complain of physical assaults both by clients, and by the police.
These activists say that the police, on the pretext of controlling public order, seize the money that the women have earned. They also take advantage of the prostitutes, sexually abusing them, sometimes without using condoms.
The peer educators believe the women are now winning one major battle - that of telling their clients that there will be no sex without condoms.
This week the risks faced by prostitutes will come under the spotlight at a regional conference on "HIV and Sex Work" to be held in Maputo from Wednesday to Friday. The event is organised by the National AIDS Council (CNCS) and the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA).
The participants (from Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi and Zimbabwe) will discuss a strategic plan of action concentrating on prostitution along the main regional transport corridors, regarded as highly vulnerable to the spread of HIV.
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