Ships, trucks, clubs and HIV/AIDS

After spending months at sea or cooped up in a truck for several days, young men working far away from home, arrive in the port city of Walvis Bay with money to burn, helping to fuel HIV infection. Strategically located half way down the coast of Namibia, with direct access to principal shipping routes, the deep-sea port of Walvis Bay is dominated by the fishing industry. Commercial fishing and fish processing is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the Namibian economy. The Trans-Caprivi and Trans-Kalahari highways link Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe - countries with HIV infection rates that are among the world's highest - to Walvis Bay. Inevitably, this highly mobile environment has made fishermen and truck drivers particularly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. Relatively well paid, these two population groups are at the centre of the commercial sex industry in the port city, which has an HIV prevalence rate of between 25 and 30 percent. But while truck drivers and sex workers have been targeted by countless AIDS awareness initiatives, fishermen tend to be overlooked. A recent study conducted by Namibia's Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), found that foreign fishermen working on large fishing vessels are even more marginalised. Trawlermen from European and Asian countries with low HIV prevalence were particularly at risk. The study showed that foreign fishermen were the bridge linking high and low risk regions of the world, potentially connecting Chinese housewives with commercial sex workers and her clients in Walvis Bay, according to IPPR research associate Christiaan Keulder. Having received no HIV/AIDS education prior to their arrival or during their stay in Namibia, most of these fishermen have low levels of HIV/AIDS knowledge. They were also more likely to engage in unsafe sex with commercial sex workers, Keulder told a workshop on 'HIV/AIDS in the Fishery Sector in Africa' held in Lusaka, Zambia last week. In addition, the inability of the foreign trawler men to communicate in local languages, made it even more difficult for sex workers to negotiate condom use, while local AIDS educators were unlikely to use their limited funds on foreign nationals or to negotiate entry onto international ships. According to Keulder, local fishermen were also vulnerable, as HIV/AIDS education efforts among this group were generally inadequate. Distrust of vessel owners and management caused Namibian trawlermen to be wary of such initiatives. "Those who are supposed to give us that [HIV] information are our bosses, the boat operators. They are all foreigners, so they don't really care about us. Their concern is just work and their fish. As you know, those foreigners are still having that wish that we should suffer so that they can come back in our country," the study quoted a local fisherman as saying. The high levels of alcohol abuse within the local communities, and their risky lifestyles, have contributed to high HIV prevalence rates among local fishermen. SHIPS AND CLUBS Commercial sex work is illegal in Namibia, and nightclubs have become an important link between sex workers and the foreign trawler crews. "Entertainment is perceived to be the main business but commercial sex workers are [in fact] the main business," Keulder pointed out. The study found that club owners liased with harbour authorities to find out the schedules of ships arriving in Walvis Bay and relayed this information to sex workers. "The symbiotic relationship between clubs and commercial sex workers is not as accidental as it seems ... it is a planned thing," Keulder told PlusNews. The study found that there were two categories of sex workers in Walvis Bay: the "upper end" women whose clients tended to be foreign fishermen and businessmen, and would get called by club owners when foreign fishermen arrived at the clubs; the "low end" sex workers operated mostly in unlicensed bars or as street walkers, with local fishermen and truck drivers as clients, and were sometimes even paid in alcohol. Nevertheless, sex workers were the most informed about HIV/AIDS, having received extensive HIV education and access to condoms, as well as exposure to testing. But the high levels of violence they experienced, and alcohol and drug abuse, put them at risk of infection, Keulder said.