Legalise Prostitution Now, Nigerian Sex Workers Demand

The Nigeria National Sex Workers Association have pleaded with the Federal Government to decriminalise commercial sex in the country, Amaka Enemo, its national coordinator says.

Enemo made the appeal at the Sexual Ethnography Dissemination Workshop on Wednesday in Abuja while briefing journalists at the inauguration of a new report on ‘Understanding the high risk of urban sexual networks in Nigeria’.

She said the decriminalisation will enable sex workers work in a conducive environment and have easy access to medical treatments.

The national coordinator said sex workers face violence from their clients and also from law enforcement agents when they raid their brothels or streets where they conduct their business.

According to her, decriminalisation will not only help to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country, but also stop violence against sex workers.

She added that government would also benefit from the sex workers because they would pay tax.

“Once a sex worker is infected with HIV, she can transmit it to as many people as possible by sleeping with just one man, who sleeps with his wife and probably his other girlfriend.
“And the girlfriend has a boyfriend who also has another girlfriend and it keeps spreading that way. So, one sex worker can transmit the virus to a hundred people.

“When a sex worker’s hideout is raided, the law enforcers collect money from them and when there is no money to offer, they offer them sex. Some of these law enforcers don’t even use condoms and the sex worker don’t have much of a choice at that particular time,” she added.

Ms. Anemo’s plea was in reaction to a recent research study on the risk female sex workers face in their job.

The study which was carried out by the Centre for Global Public Health, University of Manitoba, Canada in collaboration with the National Agency for the Control of AIDS, NACA, covers female sex workers in Nigeria.

Part of the findings are that, while female sex workers may have the highest risk of contracting HIV, women engaging in transactional sex have a higher level of risk as compared to those engaging in casual sex.

She said there are still some places in the country where sex workers do not know about the use of condom and other facilities that help prevent sexual transmitted diseases.

“If a sex worker is infected with HIV and sleeps with a man and transmit the disease to him, the man will eventually transmit the infection to either his wife or girlfriend and others,” she said.

“The best thing to do is to support them, de-criminalise their work so that they can do their work in human environment.”