Counties 'best placed' to tackle prostitution menace
Seven twilight ladies at the Kisumu Municipal Magistrates court after they were arrested in Kondele and other social joints on last year. County governments were Friday challenged to address the sex workers’ menace after a survey identifying hotspots showed urban areas were hardest hit. Photo/JACOB OWITI
County governments were Friday challenged to address the sex workers’ menace after a survey identifying hotspots showed urban areas were hardest hit.
The survey said county governments were best placed to encourage small businesses as a way of discouraging commercial sex which has been blamed for proliferation of new infections within urban centres.
The report prepared by the Kenya Aids Control Project in conjunction with the Universities of Nairobi and Manitoba (Canada) indicates that at least 46.2 per cent of female sex workers are infected with HIV compared to 7.7 per cent of the general population.
In all major centres, the survey states that estimated five per cent of women aged between 15-49 years living in urban areas are sex workers.
It rates Nairobi region as having the highest number of sex workers at 27,620 followed by Rift Valley which has an estimated 23,700.
103,000 SEX WORKERS
A total of 51 towns were surveyed. The findings were that there are about 103,300 sex workers in the country.
In a sitting with sex workers along the Nairobi-Nakuru-Eldoret highway, women in this trade blamed poverty and lack of jobs for their engagement in this oldest profession.
Failed marriages and frequent cases of domestic violence also emerged as key issues that fuelled prostitution.
“My husband divorced me, leaving me as the sole provider for our two children, I ended up moving from Kisumu to do sex work,” said a sex worker at Salgaa, along the Nakuru-Eldoret highway.
The research was carried out with an aim of understanding locations and size estimates of female sex workers and other high at risk populations in the country with an aim of informing them on HIV prevention and programming.
Other high at risk populations according to HIV experts include men who have sex with men and people who inject drugs.
This was the first National-Level mapping of female sex workers to be conducted in the country.
It aims at triggering registration of sex workers and identification and allocation of peer educators in identified sites.
It identified a total of 10,670 female sex workers’ hotspots in the country.
Nairobi had the highest number of hotspots accounting for 24 per cent of the overall number.
