Sex work on the increase in Zambezi

KATIMA Mulilo’s chief executive officer (CEO), Raphael Liswaniso, is concerned about the rise in sex work at the town.

He says this is one of the factors contributing to the high prevalence of HIV in the region.

Liswaniso made these remarks yesterday during the council’s mid-term review and revised HIV-AIDS strategic plan validation meeting.

The CEO said sex workers have been noticed where truck drivers park at night, and that the town is a popular market for sex work as it is a border town with over 300 trucks passing through it per day.

“We have an increase in trucks which is the result of copper from Zambia being exported to China. Our weighbridge is very small and cannot process all the trucks in one day, meaning they have to overnight at the town.

“Our young people due to the high rate of unemployment has resorted to sex work to get an income. We need to take cognisance of this, because our HIV prevalence is on the rise,” he said.

Liswaniso said the prevalence of HIV in the region is not decreasing, although over 90% of the infected population is on antiretroviral treatment (ART).

He attributed this to the fact that some patients collect their ART, but do not take it.

“We need to have a monitoring and evaluation system to find out whether these people are taking their medication. The ARTs, if taken properly, are supposed to suppress the virus, which will result in the reduction of the HIV rate in the region.

“We cannot have the same rate of infection in 2012 and in 2020,” he said.

Liswaniso said stigma around HIV still exists in the Zambezi region, causing those living with the virus to be reluctant to be open about it.

“Our culture makes it very difficult for us to talk to our children about sex, it’s like an insult. The only time parents talk to their children about sex is when it is too late and they are already infected. The parents then want to beat them.

“Our culture needs to change for the better. We also need to change the culture of keeping your HIV status a secret,” he said.

Alti Zwandor, the country director of the United Nations Programme on HIV-AIDS (UNAIDS), who also attended the meeting, said although Namibia has made a huge progress in its responses to HIV and Covid-19, the country still needs to progress towards delivering on the shared commitment to end AIDS by 2030.

“Though the 90-90-90 targets have been achieved nationally, some important population groups, including children, adolescents, sex workers and men who have sex with men have been left behind.

“Besides, most of the global goals adopted in the 2016 Political Declaration on Ending AIDS have not been met.

“The world, including the Zambezi region and Katima Mulilo, is off track – not because of a lack of knowledge or tools to beat AIDS, but because of structural inequalities that obstruct proven solutions to HIV prevention and treatment,” she said.

Zwandor said UNAIDS last year facilitated the development of the new Global AIDS Strategy 2021 – 2026, which was endorsed by the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board and the UN General Assembly under the leadership of Namibia.

“Now, in 2022, it’s time to roll out the strategy,” she pleaded.

A presentation done by Irene Mabuku at the meeting indicated that the Zambezi region’s HIV prevalence rate stands at 20,8% among people between 15 and 49 years old.

HIV positivity among children born to HIV positive women stands at 1,4 %, she said.

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