Claude Mills, Staff Reporter
FEMALE prostitutes infected with the deadly HIV/AIDS virus are roaming Jamaica's stre-ets, deliberately trying to infect unsuspecting adult males and even schoolboys, who pay for sex.
And there is nothing the law can do about it.
"I know of at least 20 females who have been (HIV/AIDS) patients at Lord's Place at one time who have left because they could not conform to the rules, and they are out there spreading the disease," said Father Raymond de la Cruz of the Missionaries of the Poor, which operates The Lord's Place.
The Lord's Place in central Kingston offers comfort, limited medical assistance and spiritual guidance to persons suffering in the last stages of the killer disease AIDS.
Most of the so-called sexual predators are known cocaine addicts, who the Catholic priest claims freely admit that they are unconcerned about the consequences of their actions.
"These women are angry at the world, they don't care that they are passing on AIDS," Father de la Cruz added. "They aren't even worried that they have the disease...They don't even feel the sex, it's just a function."
Father de la Cruz admitted that he knew of a particular prostitute who practised her trade with curious schoolboys anxious to gain their first sexual experience.
"I told her that she was going to hell...," he said. "She said she didn't care."
Despite the horror of the prostitutes' acts, there are no laws which will punish them for the deliberate act of cruelty.
According to Paula Llewellyn, acting senior deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, "Jamaica has yet to promulgate any law which deals expressly with criminalizing HIV/AIDS endangerment which would incorporate wilful infection and donation of blood, while knowing that one is so infected.
"Recourse can only be had by prosecuting individuals for offences against the person."
According to Father de la Cruz, these cocaine addicts disguise themselves in dancehall wigs and make-up, plying their trade in filthy, dilapidated buildings primarily in the heart of Kingston.
"These poor men do not even suspect that these women have AIDS because it's dark," he explained.
The market area and dilapidated buildings on Hanover Street are popular locations for the infected prostitutes, he added, and some have gone to the nearby fishing villages.
"I know of five or six fishermen who have contracted AIDS and died," Father de la Cruz said. "They say they got the disease by having sex with these prostitutes on their boats. We don't know if they go uptown as well."
Meanwhile, law enforcers remain largely ignorant of the actions of the prostitutes and the potential health risks involved. When contacted last week, Superintendent Artice Brown-Getton, of the police's Rape Investigative Unit, urged Father de la Cruz to tell the police what he knows.
"The Father should discharge his honourable and moral duty and ensure that the authorities know about it," she said.
