Senegal: Sexual intercourse work is lawful here. But only if you register with the police – Tek Portal

Dakar, Senegal — On a sweltering afternoon in a suburb of Dakar, Binta is among a team of females waiting around to be seen in the back again of a Senegalese government clinic. When her title is named, she is ushered into a look at-up space, examined for a collection of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and handed totally free condoms.
At the stop of the appointment, the nurse stamps her identification card, referred to as a “carnet sanitaire,” which she is expected to carry as a registered, authorized sexual intercourse employee.
The 24-yr-aged single mom travels above an hour and a fifty percent by taxi to get listed here, even while it indicates she’s often late for her night computer system science lessons. On the trip by way of Dakar’s site visitors-snarled streets, she flips via photographs of her 4-calendar year-aged son on her cellphone. For Binta, it is really truly worth the prolonged commute: “I go below due to the fact it can be discreet.”
She first came to Sébikhotane clinic previous slide, following signing up to a govt scheme that regulates the intercourse field in Senegal. Beneath the software, sexual intercourse staff ought to sign-up with police, show up at necessary every month sexual overall health screenings, check detrimental for STIs and carry a valid ID card confirming their overall health status. If a sex employee contracts HIV, they’re specified absolutely free antiretroviral treatment therapy ahead of being permitted to continue on soliciting clientele.

Binta didn’t feel twice about signing up for the plan, confident that it would help safeguard her from sexually transmitted ailments and abuse.
Senegal’s legalization and regulation of sex work has been applauded for managing the nation’s HIV level. At .4%, HIV prevalence in the place is appreciably decrease than quite a few of its West and Central African neighbors the normal for the area is 1.5%, for every UNAIDS. That determine is even higher in East and Southern Africa, wherever HIV prevalence is 7.1%.
It’s also the only nation on the continent exactly where sex get the job done is legal and controlled by well being plan, according to the World-wide Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP), which advocates for decriminalization of the profession.
Some public wellness industry experts suggest that Senegal’s registration procedure opened dialogue about sexual behavior and laid the groundwork for foreseeable future HIV prevention systems focusing on susceptible populations.

But inquiries continue to be about the policy’s efficacy in managing the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Sexual intercourse function is still criminalized in Senegal for those people who are unregistered, which proficiently makes a two-tiered method in which “clandestine” prostitutes fall as a result of the cracks.
And signing up for the legal scheme is not this kind of a basic decision in Senegal, a 96% Muslim-greater part country exactly where sexual intercourse workers encounter huge social stigma and discrimination. NSWP states that leaves sexual intercourse workers open to exploitation by law enforcement. Moreover, the technique only applies to women of all ages around 21, leaving male sexual intercourse personnel without assistance (homosexuality is illegal below Senegalese regulation).
These components put together are cited by scientists to make clear the reduced degree of registration — only 20% of sex employees throughout Senegal and 43% in Dakar have signed up to get the card.
“Appropriate now, the method will not work,” states Khady Gueye, plan coordinator for the HIV division of Senegal’s Ministry of Health and fitness, who presents guidance to equally registered and unregistered ladies via outreach programs.

Senegal’s Ministry of Overall health and civil modern society teams are hoping to transform that, notably since intercourse employees are however the most important contributor to the HIV epidemic: with a prevalence of 6.6%, they are up to 16 occasions far more likely to be contaminated than the basic population.
‘The issue is the card’

Whilst the registration regulation was very first launched in 1969 — inherited from French colonial legislation that caught around even immediately after Senegal declared independence — there was little proof of its affect on sex workers until finally a short while ago.
Aurelia Lepine, a enhancement economist at University University London, revealed a report previous yr in collaboration with Professor Cheikh Tidiane Ndour, director of the AIDS and STI division of Senegal’s Ministry of Overall health, which revealed that the registration technique has a crippling effect on sex worker’s psychological very well-staying.

“In Senegal, there is this idea … that the small HIV charge is because of to this policy,” stated Lepine, conveying that this was aspect of the explanation she required to study the system. But even though she found registration led to a 38% lessen in STI prevalence, it also significantly lowered the nicely-being of sex workers.
“It is really a great policy in phrases of community wellness. The challenge is the card. So, it truly is not the coverage alone, but it is the way it is materialized,” Lepine claimed.
Gals who are registered reside in concern that family members members will find out their identification cards, or in some way see their name on a registration database. To keep away from detection, they go out of their way to check out remote wellbeing clinics like Sébikhotane.
Awa, a 28-year-old registered sexual intercourse worker who spoke with CNN after her appointment at the clinic, anxieties continually that her 11-calendar year-old son will discover her ID.
“At property I designed a minor…

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