EULALEE THOMPSON
THE PROBLEMS I have with these on-again off-again public discussions on 'accepting' or legalising prostitution to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS in Jamaica are:
1)It's always men who are making the suggestion and are so gung-ho about it. I wonder if it is an articulation of some male sex fantasy which women are not privy to. I don't even hear the prostitutes clamouring for this kind of recognition, and anyway, which woman (or man) in her/his right mind would want to be recognised for bartering their 'privates' for financial gain? This is why you will never hear a responsible parent saying, "I want my child to become a prostitute when he/she grows up."
2) The selective definition of prostitutes as only the half-naked women, wearing blonde wigs, standing on dark streets in New Kingston is really bothersome. If we are really interested in 'accepting' prostitution then are we ready to accept the 'profession' in all its shades and forms, including the 'nice uptown' men and women (married, unmarried, extra-marital or any combination) who agree to barter sex for rent, utilities, grocery and so on. Is anybody checking if these sub-groups are practising safe sex?
3) If the street side prostitutes had no customers, they would stand outside, half-naked all night and catch a cold. Maybe that's why more advanced and civilised countries are more likely to be interested in apprehending the customers, not legalising or 'accepting' prostitution.
The public debate is now centred around the 'Thailand model'. Businessman Lascelles Chin was part of a business delegation to Thailand. He recently told journalists at a press briefing that Thailand accepts 'the profession' of prostitution, though it has not been legalised, and that that country has achieved 100 per cent condom use among sex workers.
There must be more to Thailand than commercial sex work, but that country is regarded as the sex tourism destination of the world. Data from UNAIDS indicate that from very early in the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Thailand, it was acknowledged that most HIV infections were occurring through commercial sex. Maybe Thailand had no choice but to accept prostitution.
It seems that what's more important in the 'Thailand model' was not the 'accepting' of prostitution but, according to AVERT, an international AIDS charity (www.avert.org), it is a determined public policy that focuses on 'a massive programme to control HIV which has reduced visits to commercial sex workers by half, raised condom usage, decreased sexually transmitted infections dramatically, and achieved substantial reductions in new HIV infections'.
Based on data from Jamaica's National HIV/STD Prevention and Control Programme, sex with prostitutes is a reported risk behaviour for HIV/AIDS, but the more important risk behaviour is multiple sexual partners/contact. The data show that the more important facts to consider in Jamaica's situation are that:
For every 1,000 pregnant women in Jamaica, 13 are infected with HIV. Higher HIV infection rates were observed from the parishes of Kingston, St. Andrew, St. James and St. Catherine.
Adolescent females in the age group 10-19 years had three times higher risk of HIV-infection than boys of the same age group. This is as a result of social factors whereby young girls/women are having sexual relations with HIV-infected older men. On the average, 50 per cent of young women reported their sexual partner to be five to 10 years older than them.
HIV/AIDS was the third leading cause of death for adolescents age 10-19 years in 2002.
Please send your feedback to eulalee.thompson@ gleanerjm.com.
