Aids initiative pays prostitutes to spread the word

Paying prostitutes to spread the news about Aids among truck drivers in Africa might sound somewhat startling, but this is one of the most successful Aids awareness initiatives undertaken by the North Star Foundation. Truck drivers are some of the most vulnerable professionals when it comes to being infected as they spend most nights away from home and form many casual relationships on the road. The foundation runs wellness centres at “hot spots” in areas throughout Africa where transport drivers park at night to rest and mingle with sex workers. The centres are very basic and consist of 12m containers where half is equipped as a training room and half as a clinic. It is in these training rooms on the N3 route where sex workers are paid for their time and taught how to use condoms, avoid other sexually transmitted infection (STI) risks and pass the information on to their clients. “We have found that there is still a stigma attached to Aids in the workplace but things are much better on the road. The drivers are parked off in a little community and openly come to the centres as they are branded as wellness centres and the driver can claim he came to see us about an headache and not necessarily an STI. “At our clinics at border posts we have a captive audience as vehicles usually take a few days to get through. There is a great buy-in from the bottom up and we get great support from the unions,” says Paul Matthew, operations director Africa of the North Star Foundation. From 2004 to 2006 they have seen a 17 % reduction in STIs on the road and Matthew says this is due to education, awareness and treatment of the STIs so that re-infection doesn’t occur. He does however sound a warning bell to the transportation industry: “There is a major shortage of drivers so it is good for the entire industry to keep them healthy. There are unfortunately a lot of employers who still say ‘it is not my problem or responsibility’. These guys must look at the long term. If the trucks stop then Africa stops. If they don’t invest in Aids programmes such as these and we lose even more drivers then they will not have an industry left at all.”