October 28, 2019
By Hassan Gbassay Koroma
Aruna Rashid Koroma, Secretary CARCAP
Consortium for the Advancement of Rights for Key Affected Populations (CARKAP) has stated that out of 71,930 Female Sex Workers reached with HIV prevention package in 2016 and 2017, with 75% tested, 5.2% were proven positive-equivalent to 3,741.
The disclosure was made by Aruna Rashid Koroma, Secretary of CARCAP, during a one day orientation meeting with the media on key populations.
He defined sex workers as women, men and transgender people who receive money or goods in exchange for sexual services, and who consciously define those activities as income generating, even if they do not consider sex work as their occupation.
He said they were working with other organizations, including the commercial sex workers across the country on sensitization about the prevention of HIV, noting that they had trained some of the sex workers to resist violence by people who might want to take advantage of them.
He said they have also formed a crises response team in the regions that gives assistance to some cases of violation, noting that they still have challenges.
He cited stigma, discrimination, and ignorance as among the barrier to key populations accessing HIV services.
He said they also have challenges with the legal environment-insensitive laws like the Section 45 of the Public Order Act of 1965.
He called on the public to respect the rights of sex workers because they are human beings just like anybody, arguing that there is nowhere in the country’s Constitution that says sex for money or favour is a crime.
He recommended that good practice and decriminalisation of unjust application noncriminal laws, antidiscrimination laws and regulations should guarantee rights of all persons.
He said violence against sex workers is a risk factor for HIV prevention and that it must be prevented and addressed in partnership, adding that they should promote condom use among female sex workers and offer them periodic screening.
In his opening statement earlier on behalf of the Chairperson, Programme Manager of CARCAP, Harry Ben Alpha, stated that the organisation is the lead umbrella civil society organization implementing community system strengthening for the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, to improve access to quality health service delivery for key affected populations.
He said the purpose of the meeting was to share relevant information on organizations targeting key affected population, their problematic intervention areas, targeted populations, size estimation and coverage key achievements and major challenges and to test out possible areas for new problematic interventions.
He further stated that the community system strengthening was the means of empowering national non-governmental organizations and community based organizations, including community actors, faith based institutions, to take functional leadership in holding community leaders accountable and answerable for the quality of health delivery to community members.
In his presentation, Programme Manager at Civil Society Movement Against Tuberculosis (CISMAT-SL), Mohamed Samura, said their vision was to ensure TB free society in Sierra Leone by the end of 2030, adding that they also wanted to see a country where TB patients are involved in national response activities at all levels.
He said their mission was to build the capacity of CSO’s on TB related advocacy and community engagements, to complement response on TB prevention, care and control in Sierra Leone through lobbying, dialogue, community outreach and awareness raising.