A new body of commercial sex workers in Nigeria has called on the
Federal Government to legalize the profession to prevent the spread of
HIV.
A splinter group from the National Association of Nigerian Prostitutes [NANP] called the Nigerian Sex Workers Association [NSWA], has called on the Federal Government to legalize their profession as this would curb the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
The newly formed
body also believes that if the government should decriminalize
prostitution, the incessant harassment they face from law enforcement
agents would reduce while men who demand sex from them without using
condoms will reduce.
During a meeting of the association in Abuja, Amaka Enemo,
the National Coordinator of NSWA, said commercial sex workers are law
abiding citizens of the country and also pay taxes and as such, the
profession should be legalized.
In
an interview with journalists at the presentation of a report titled,
‘Understanding the High Risk of Urban Sexual Networks in Nigeria,’ Enemo
was said to have played an active role in gathering information for the
report which was compiled by the National Agency for the Control of
AIDS, the University of Manitoba, United States, and the World Bank,
shows the importance of prostitutes in the society.
“Sex
workers face violence, especially from their clients and law
enforcement agents. Sex work is seen as a crime and the police raid
streets and brothels to arrest sex workers.
They
collect money and if the girl cannot pay, she will have to give sex to
the policemen. If the law enforcer does not want to use a condom, the
sex worker has to agree and this is why HIV is on the increase.
So, in this study, all the sex workers we interacted with said their biggest trouble was law enforcers,” Enemo began.
The
36-year-old prostitute who said she had been in the business for over
10 years, added that several studies had shown that countries, where
prostitution is not illegal, had lower cases of sexually transmitted
diseases, while Nigeria where it is illegal, had one of the highest
rates of HIV in the world.
“When I visited
Amsterdam (Holland), 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 decriminalized sex work.
When you decriminalize it, there will be less exploitation of sex workers and the violence will reduce.
We
want the government to decriminalize the work so that all of us will be
healthy. It might interest you to know that Nigeria has the second
highest risk of HIV worldwide and we are hoping to get to zero before
2030.
How can it end when the drivers of the epidemic are being criminalized?”
In his remarks, the Director, Strategic Knowledge Management of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS [NACA], Dr. Kayode Ogungbemi, said sex workers must be taken seriously since married men also patronized them.
“This
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 be going for HIV tests because if we
don’t do that, they will continue to spread it. Even married people
patronize them.”
Also speaking, the Country Coordinator, Center for Global Public Health, University of Manitoba, Dr. Kalada Green, said the exercise which was funded by the World Bank, was done in order to improve the efficiency of HIV prevention methods.