Truckers change gear in HIV awareness

Truckers and commercial sex workers in Swaziland have been targeted in a regional HIV/AIDS prevention programme known as the "Corridors of Hope" initiative. "Long-distance truckers, bus drivers, and taxi drivers have fallen through the cracks in previous AIDS programmes, and they now occupy the 'high risk' category in Ministry of Health studies," Hlobise Ndlovu, marketing and communications manager for the NGO Population Services International (PSI) Swaziland, told IRIN. PSI's partners in Mozambique and South Africa, which distribute condoms and handle the marketing and promotion of AIDS initiatives for other NGOs, will help launch Swaziland's Corridors of Hope programme this week. "It is shocking how many of our drivers are lost to AIDS each year. We can hardly keep up [with] hiring and training new employees. My concern is also with drivers who come back from the road and infect members of our office staff with HIV," the manager of a commercial trucking firm told IRIN. "I can imagine the devastation that is caused at the drivers’ homes when they have sex with their wives. Some of the men are polygamists." Since most workers spend their time at one location, they can easily be reached by health motivators and AIDS NGOs with educational information and condoms. But, "truckers fall outside these efforts because they are never in one place. They are high-risk for contracting HIV because they find their sexual pleasure wherever they are," said Hannie Dlamini, president of the Swaziland AIDS Support Organisation (SASO). Swaziland's health ministry confirmed in a recent report what was common knowledge in the transportation industry, that truckers turn to prostitutes on the road. To combat the rapid infection rate of HIV/AIDS among them, the Corridors of Hope programme is using commercial sex workers to promote safer sex and distribute free condoms to their clients. "We call the extra condoms 'some for the road'," said "Gloria," one of ten commercial sex workers participating in the initiative at the Lavumisa border post with South Africa. "Gloria" and her co-workers are being trained as peer educators by the Family Life Association of Swaziland (FLAS). They are given a course in the basics of AIDS and informed about the life-saving benefits, to themselves and their clients, of using and giving away condoms. "We have 10 other peer educators from Lomahasha, which is Swaziland's border post with South Africa. The greatest number, 20, come from Oshoek, the border post most heavily utilised by truck traffic from the Johannesburg-Pretoria region," Jerome Shongwe, the Corridors of Hope programme director for FLAS, told IRIN. While FLAS trains peer educators, its partner in the initiative, PSI, provides condoms and literature, and handles public relations. The campaign is financed by the United States Agency for International Development. "We are training 40 peer educators, concentrating on the key border posts. But an additional 30 sex workers - 15 from the capital Mbabane and 15 from Manzini - will join the others, because the truckers from other nations hire sex workers at those towns," said Shongwe. The peer educators will also spread the anti-AIDS gospel, along with condoms and pamphlets, among other commercial sex workers. "We wanted actual commercial sex workers, and not professional social welfare workers," said Shongwe. "They are on the front line of high-risk activity. They can save themselves by promoting safe sex, as well as their clients." Peer educators are given a small stipend of R300 (about US $40) a month. "This is not enough to get them to give up their lives as prostitutes, but it keeps them motivated," Shongwe said. Without a road transport industry, landlocked nations like Swaziland and Lesotho would be in crisis, and export nations like Mozambique and South Africa would collapse economically, say transport industry operators. A healthy transport workforce is vital to national development, as national health ministries have come to realise. "Prostitution is illegal in Swaziland, but government and the police are not interfering with the Corridors of Hope programme," an administrator with the project told IRIN. Mozambican and South African health NGOs involved in the initiative will join their Swazi counterparts at the weekend for a tri-nation celebration of the initiative. "We'll be gathering at the border posts, cheering each other and giving mutual support," promised Ndlovu. Organisers look forward to the largest gathering of public transport vehicles, taxis and buses ever assembled in Swaziland for a parade on Saturday through downtown Mbabane, all carrying anti-AIDS messages. It is hoped the hundreds of truckers that queue daily at the border for customs clearances will get the message.