Our Streetwork Program distributes about 200 000 condoms each year to help prevent the spread of HIV/Aids.

We distribute at least 200 000 condoms each year to various agencies, brothels, prostitutes and men buying prostitutes.  The condoms are used as a 'licence' to discuss the issues of HIV prevention, testing and survival with these people.  We specifically concerned with the population of prostitutes and their 'customers'.  The latest estimates are that South Africa has more than 80 000 prostitutes, who mainly serve married sex-buyers in the middle and upper income groups.  A most conservative estimate is that the +10 000 prostitutes in Johannesburg engage in 30 000 sexual encounters every day - thus  900 000 X per month! 

We further postulate a generalization that most sex-buyers do not use condoms with their spouses and friends and are placing many innocent people at risk.  There is no way to overemphasize the importance of programmes such as these.

It may not be out of line to estimate, conservatively, that 80 000 prostitutes serve an average of 2 clients per day. Therefore we are looking at a minimum of 58 million sexual contacts per year!!  This may amount to a staggering R4000 million ($700 million).

Even at this stage when prostitution is illegal we have an abundance of child prostitutes in our country.  We estimate that at least 3 000 of the girls in Johannesburg range between the ages 11 and 17.  This group is our main target group for HIV prevention, retrieval and rehabilitation.

Aims and Objectives

• Reaching out to the highest risk group in society - crack-cocaine addicts, intravenous drug addicts, prostitutes and sex-buyers (men buying prostitutes)
• Condoms, syringes and educational literature distributed for free
• HIV/Aids pre-test and post-test counselling
• HIV/Aids counselling - Usually linked with rape or hearing of a sex buyer or boyfriend/pimp that has recently tested HIV+
• Rape counselling - When in prostitution you get raped.  These incidences are used to encourage the young woman or girl to re-think the lifestyle she is in, to maybe want to get out of the life of abuse she is in. If and when needed, to refer her for medical treatment and arrange to test for HIV and STD
• Pregnancy and pregnancy termination counselling
• HIV/Aids and Sexually Transmitted Disease education
• HIV/Aids and Sexually Transmitted Diseases testing referral and follow-up
• Assist where possible with HIV/Aids research and studies
• Family planning counselling and assistance in using contraceptives
• To address the quality of STD and HIV/Aids education and information available to the youth - Of concern is the fact that although probably millions of rands are spent on the education of 'Save Sex' and 'Saver Sex', there are not condoms available that will fit young boys under the age of 16 or 17, while research has shown that children are sexually active from as early as 12 or 13 years. 

 

Early Intervention helps prevent HIV/Aids

Most of the girls coming into this programme have been trapped in prostitution or are/were on the verge of entering this devastating "way-of-survival". It is true that most of the children who come from a background of survival sex and prostitution are HIV infected. The prevalence of a wide variety of other venereal diseases is another disturbing reality, which middle class sex-buyers take home to their wives.

The following implications play a very important role in the motivation of the service rendered by the various projects of The House Group - Four of the many sad facts about prostitution are that:

1. It is a young person's trade and she is its prize commodity.
2. The average prostitute has sex with about one thousand sex-buyers per year.
3. HIV/Aids is an occupational hazard of the prostitute.
4. The HIV infected teenage prostitute of 15 has at least another 5 years of active prostitution ahead of her before disease will force her price down, and eventually end her career.

In spite of the argument of the following paragraph we want to make it clear that The House does not subscribe to the currently prevailing male chauvinist attitude that male sex buyers (the people who create the demand for the 'product', the buyers of our girl-children and young women) have a 'right to access' to 'clean, screened and fit for duty' prostitutes  and that it would be government's duty to provide such a service to tax payers.

If removed from the prostitution arena at age 15 such a girl can be effectively prevented from directly infecting many thousands of men, and indirectly save the lives of these unscrupulous perpetrators' wives girlfriends and possibly their children. The prohibitive effect of removing only thirty (30) HIV+ teenage prostitutes from the circuit carries an astounding long-term benefit for society at large. To illustrate this fact, the following calculation can be made to show the devastating effect one HIV infected child prostitute can have on society.