More and more young people are becoming involved in sex work especially ‘transactional sex’ because of poor economic circumstances, and instead of the authorities helping them to practise safe sex and provide alternatives they demonise them pushing them underground which will only increase the incidence of HIV and AIDS.
This is the view of Miriam Edwards Executive Director of the Guyana Sex Work Coalition, who said she has been travelling throughout Guyana especially to remote areas and has seen the effects of poverty and other social ills.
Given this, she believes, more young women and men will continue to fall into sex work, especially transactional sex where young people do not go out onto the streets to solicit, but take on several partners in order to maintain themselves.
“If you can’t give them an alternative it ain’t mek no sense you push them underground; work with them. You might be surprised that they may change if you work along with them, tell them how to protect themselves, give them an alternative and try to help them in some way either to continue their education or something,” Edwards told the Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview.
She said that is the direction her work takes even though the coalition has financial constraints.
That being said Edwards made it clear that she is “terrible against” trafficking in persons, but if the sex worker goes into the lifestyle by choice or circumstances the authorities need to work with them “instead of harassing them, because you just pushing them to hide and do it…”
And when it was suggested that the young people should be told to abstain and not look at sex as a means of supporting themselves, Edwards quickly dismissed this saying that it is “stupidness” and that “when I talking, I talking about reality, things what happening.”
“You know some parents just waiting for deh children done school fuh leh a man come and tek them and give them some ease, because deh have more children to support,” Edwards said bluntly.
She went on to say it is not that the parents