Home / 2005 / 2005 TAPE 33 - Jayne Arnott, SWEAT

2005 TAPE 33 - Sex Workers and HIV, Jayne Arnott

Mike Rautenbach: ...used as to train their clients, people that they come to contact with, is it that feasible that?

Jayne Arnott: It is. I think you were referring to Thailand where they had the 100% condom usage programmes. I mean we have some issues with that, but basically what it is is that, if you can empower the sex worker and you have got the infrastructure, for example the brothel is also supportive of condom usage, then you have a situation where sex workers can educate their clients, but you have to have that kind of environment. So in terms of, actually, sex workers we will look more at peer education in terms of sex workers educating other sex workers on the health issues and that would include stuff around negotiation skills, getting clients to use a condom and there are various ways of getting a client that does not want to wear a condom to wear one. You know there is a lot of skill involved in it, but sex workers are good at that. So it is those kinds of things that are happening here, but taking from that there's a whole grouping of people - and I think that was one of your questions - there is a whole group that we are ignoring here which are the clients.

Mike Rautenbach: Can we start from the top please. Is it true to regards sex workers in a high risk category in relation to HIV and AIDS?

Jayne Arnott: From SWEAT's side we would say that sex workers, they are particularly a vulnerable group in relation to the nature of the work they do and that would place them in a vulnerable position in terms of HIV and AIDS, but then again the majority of sex workers being woman, we would say woman are as a group vulnerable. So, ja that is how we would see it and that is how we would approach it.

Mike Rautenbach: Is it true that rates of infection among sex workers are higher than other categories?

Jayne Arnott: Again a very difficult question. I mean there's been various studies done that shown that show conflicting rates. Some say that they equal the general population, you know the infection rates and the general population, others are higher. It also goes to who has been researched and you know sex workers are a diverse group of people and often studies tend to focus on the most visible and most vulnerable, which are often your street base sex workers. And to have a study that brings out rates there is not a reflection of sex workers in their totality in this country.

Mike Rautenbach: Okay, how in your experience and your work, I mean is it of often is sex workers physically threaten to have unprotected sex? Is it a big issue?

Jayne Arnott: There are high rates of violence against sex workers and generally and it does impact in relation of unprotected sex. There are many occasions where clients will used physical force or threat of physical force to have sex without a condom. It is more complex than that because it is also issues of economics and often sex workers are offered more money and in terms of economic survival some might do that and it could be that there is no condoms available. It is also around women's ability to negotiate and the power in balances, so it is quite a complex issue. And for the majority of sex workers particularly the ones that we, talking from my experience working here in Cape Town, sex workers are very aware that they need to use condoms and not to have sex without a condom with a client.

Mike Rautenbach: And then what is the effect of criminalisation of sex have on a sex workers ability to look after their own health?

Jayne Arnott: Well, for us SWEAT is actively advocating for decriminalisation for the very reason that criminalization is central to the present situation, is central to causing many problems around health and safety issues. Sex work is illegal, sex workers avoid being seen, they work in a very much in an under ground nature, they get mixed up with criminal elements, they are seen to be criminals and seen to be linked to criminals, they are very reluctant to often access health services, particularly clinics, they also can't access protection they are scared of the police and even if they have a issue of domestic nature they will not go to the police if they are known to be sex worker. So it really creates a situation where sex workers are very vulnerable and the one last point I want to make, in particular from our experience, is that organizations can't access sex workers for services for education and work around health and safety.

Mike Rautenbach: Then the question about, then is surely it's not only the clients that are at risk of infection with sex workers, obviously the sex workers as well they are at risk, but the sex workers tend to be demonised, to be seen as they're the ones who are spreading HIV. How does this play itself out, what effect does this demonisation of sex workers have?

Jayne Arnott: Well it is... we are actively fighting that whole stereo type, that sex workers are vectors of disease and how it plays itself out is that you have whole block of people who have been ignored in terms of targeting them with education, preventative information and safer sex education and, that to us at SWEAT, a client is the man next door and again we often see that stereo types emerging, for example; there is a lot of work been done with truckers and they are seen again as a high risk group. But the clients of sex workers are not just truckers, they are men in general - the majority of them are men - and we need to work on that area to actually change and reduce HIV infection rates in this country.

Mike Rautenbach: And what type of work, how do you... what are you going to do about that?

Jayne Arnott: Well, I think we need to target... just as sex workers seem to be a very strong target group for education, information and research.  We need to get a lot more public education out there, messages out to men about safer sex, the implications of behaviour, the need to use a condom and in our work we've actually started working with some clients of sex workers, at the request of a group of sex workers, with safer sex demonstrations and we've been amazed to see at the lack of understanding of condom use, how to use a condom properly, what to do and how to check for STIs there is just a lack of education out there and we need to get it out there.

Mike Rautenbach: And Jayne if we can just repeat that question about sex workers being used as educators in the campaign against HIV. First of all what is your opinion of that? Is this being done here and how is being done?

Jayne Arnott: Well you know, there is a big body, a school of thought that says that the best person that can educate another is a person who is in the same situation and has experienced it. So In South Africa in the moment we do have varies peer education projects running, particularly health based organizations across the country that are engaging the sex workers around the health issues, have peer education projects. At SWEAT we haven't gone that root but given, we are working around health and human rights, we are in the second year of supporting the development of a sex worker led movement and that movement we are hoping will be able, once it has grown and develop some structure, it will be able to then engage sex workers on the health and safety issues and take and in the legal reform issues, because for us you cannot separate the two. And if we are going to have improved health and safety for sex workers in this country we are needing to address the present criminal law that is there.

Mike Rautenbach: Any other point you want to make about sex workers and HIV?

Jayne Arnott: No, I don't think so.

Mike Rautenbach: Did you get some of her hands as we were chatting early or some sort of cutaway as she is sitting here?

Jayne Arnott: We do know we have brought out quite a lot of literature, health literature and we have had feed back from sex workers, they'll take... we hand a little hand book with various STIs in the middle of it, with graphic pictures and we went on outreach one night and one of the sex workers said "You know, a client came and we were going to have sex and I saw that he had an STI and I said no ways," and she said "You see this? That is the one you've got."  So it is... I think it is quite feasible, but I mean again it is relates to the situation the sex worker finds her self....