Register prostitutes, urges Namibian health minister

Namibia's growing number of prostitutes must be registered as "a matter of national urgency" to prevent their clients spreading HIV to their families, AFP reported on Tuesday, quoting health minister Libertine Amathila. "We are absolutely in the grips of an AIDS pandemic, and there can be no denial that we have a growing number of prostitutes." Prostitution is technically illegal in Namibia, but tolerated. Namibia, like many other sub-Saharan countries, has a large migrant labour force of men who leave their families behind in rural areas and flock to urban centres to look for work. But with unemployment at about 40 percent and thousands of school leavers hitting the streets every year with little or no prospect of finding paid work, women especially have resorted to prostitution as their only means of survival, Amathila said. According to the AIDS Care Trust, which is co-financed by the state, Namibia has a national HIV infection rate of about 23 percent among adults. But it may be hard to convince prostitutes that they should register, as no one wants the stigma of being a professional sex worker attached to their name, said Apere Davids, the director of the AIDS Care Trust. "This is a very small society, and many prostitutes feel that if their names go on a list somewhere, there is a chance that their families back home (in rural Namibia) would find out what they are really doing," he warned.