Gleaner Editors' Forum | HIV prevalence among sex workers declines
Published:Friday | June 8, 2018 | 12:00 AM
Female sex workers have been embracing HIV intervention programmes, resulting in a marked reduction in the contraction of the disease, advocacy groups say.
"We have seen [a] drastic decrease in the prevalence rate among sex workers, coming from, say, 11 per cent back in 2007, to now, where we are in 2018 and we are at 2.9 per cent," said Kandasi Walton-Levermore, executive director of Jamaica AIDS Support for Life (JASL). She was speaking at a Gleaner Editors' Forum last Thursday.
Although prostitution is illegal in Jamaica, Sannia Sutherland, programme coordinator at the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition, noted that there are just under 19,000 female sex workers in the country. She said that there has been a shift in their health-seeking attitudes.
Sutherland explained: "Once you [have] outreach, and consistent outreach, it has improved [how] they seek health services. What you're finding is that they get tested consistently, they have good relationships with the health sector, and they will go into care."
Walton-Levermore pointed out that the JASL has moved to equip sex workers with skills to assist them to leave the industry.
"So some of them will do cosmetology, literacy skills, sometimes. Some would be interested in, for example, bartending. Low skills, because again, you might find that the educational level is not very high," she said.
Walton-Levermore added that other areas included housekeeping and practical nursing, but that there was not enough funding available to implement skills training on a large scale.
"Then we always come back to the challenge where even when they try to take on these new jobs, they don't see it as lucrative, or maybe the space they are working in is a bit too confined, and they are not used to that type of work environment," Walton-Levermore said.