How foolish is it to have on the one hand AIDS activists (including the government) giving out condoms especially to sex workers and on the other hand police officers taking these away from them?

In a report Criminalizing Condoms, published by the Open Society Foundation it is revealed that Zimbabwean police officers are amongst those who confiscate condoms from sex workers. By carrying condoms the police assume that women are prostitutes.

In as much as prostitution is illegal in Zimbabwe the state however should not be discouraging safe sex practices. If one is ‘proven’ guilty of prostitution let the law apply. But assuming that one in possession of a condom is a prostitute and further going on to confiscate condoms is absurd.
The report brought to light that in some countries where sex workers are arrested and have their condoms confiscated, they still make it back to the streets on the same night and end up having unprotected sex. And in other instances, sex workers have resorted to not carrying condoms at all to stay safe from police harassment or arrest. Confiscating condoms places the life of sex workers at risk and compromises disease prevention.

This entry was posted on August 2nd, 2012 at 11:25 am by Elizabeth Nyamuda and is filed under Activism, Governance, Reflections, Uncategorized, Women's issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.