Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Friends, you can’t believe what
you will get to know about how Switzerland is moving to tackle the challenges
posed by the oldest trade or profession—prostitution—which has become a major
headache for the government over the years.
Although prostitution and consumption of paid sex are legal in
Switzerland and prostitutes are considered as self-employed and are liable for
taxation, controlling the spread and intensity of the trade has been very
difficult of late.
In
an attempt to reduce open street prostitution and to improve security for sex
workers, Switzerland's largest city, Zurich, is opening "sex drive-ins"
on Monday, according to news reports.
The
nine garage-style structures, located in Sihlquai, a former industrial zone in
the city, are equipped with alarm buttons and guarded by security personnel to
ensure the safety of the prostitutes. Customers are not allowed to leave the
area with the sex workers.
As
well as getting backing from the authorities, the project in Zurich has a
democratic mandate: A referendum was held in March 2012, with 52% of voters in
favor of it.
Some
highlights:
·
The project has cost 2.4 million Swiss francs
($2.6 million) to set up.
·
Around 30 to 40 women are expected to work at the
site each night.
·
Sex workers have to pay 5 Swiss francs per night
to make use of the so-called "sex boxes," but customers don't have to
pay an entrance fee.
·
The drive-ins are open daily from 7 p.m. to 5
a.m. and can only be accessed by car.
·
Drivers have to follow a clearly marked route to
get to the area, where customers and sex workers can discuss the services
offered and agree on a price. The client can then drive into the allocated box,
where the service is provided.
·
There are also showers, toilets, a kitchen and
washing machines for the women to use, as well as an advice center where they
can seek help from social workers.
·
A gynecologist comes in once a week to offer health
checkups for the women.
The
city's social services department is running the whole operation and also
offers crash courses in German and self-defense courses for the women on site.
(Source: http://edition.myjoyonline.com/pages/oddity/201308/112088.php)
BIG QUESTION: Is this a project
worth experimenting worldwide? With what implications? To solve the high
unemployment problem or to give vent to uncontrollable libido?
This Swiss project doesn’t only
seem to be geared at streamlining prostitution but it also seeks to tackle the
health hazards associated with indiscriminate sex. It is estimated that
Switzerland has adult HIV pre3valence rate of about 0.4%, compared to that of
France and Spain (also put at 0.4%), Portugal (0.6%). The HIV prevalence in
Ghana is said to be about 1.3%.
In Ghana, prostitution is a real
menace. It is reportedly out of control and has alarming negative effects. Just
like the danger posed by the drug trade, prostitution endangers health and
destroys the moral fibre.
Prostitution in Ghana has its own
peculiarities. First, there are different types:
i.
Open
undisguised prostitution such as the one that is practised in the urban areas,
where the prostitutes set up homes and comfortably attract patronage. Take the
Adum area in Kumasi or Korle Wokon in Accra, for instance, where prostitution
goes on with impunity day and night. Other spots in the big towns and cities
are known to be the hubs of the trade.
ii.
Mufti
or plain clothes version of prostitution, which is further divided into two or
more sub-varieties:
a.
The
first variety involves practitioners (females) who create personal spaces
around popular spots and bait prospective patrons with all kinds of
attention-grabbing schemes—heavy and loud chewing of gum, heavy make-up and
run-away hairdo, special kinds of footwear (“ekumekume” or platform shoes of
all colour hues and designs to draw attention to the wearers as willing bed
fellows), flashy costume (mostly the “Apuskeleke” type for easy, unimpeded, and
quick access to the vital erogenic zones), and brazen acts such as whistling or
loud singing to entice prospective customers.
b.
A
more sophisticated variety involving ladies fashionably dressed and lurking
around offices and other localities patronized by men whom they can easily lure
into the “hit-and-run” game for money. These are really brazen and know how to
set traps. They are not difficult to spot all over the place, making faces at
men in their vicinity. These are itinerant sex machines!
There are many others who could
be placed in the category of “secret service sex operatives”—practising
prostitution but adroitly concealing their activities. On the quiet, they sell
their bodies but crave some modicum of respect and hide it. Only those who “do
it to them” know them for what they are. All these varieties thrive on
recklessness borne out by the cares and fears of life: joblessness.
Doubtless, then, prostitution is widespread
in the country. Our local and national government officials know about its prevalence
and health hazards but haven’t devised any strategy to contain it. They know
also that it is getting out of hand but have no clue how to tackle it.
The sporadic “operations”
launched by the police to flush out prostitutes and their clients haven’t
solved the problem and it is on the ascendancy. Apparently, such operations end
up securing some of the prostitutes as “fringe benefits” for the security
personnel detailed to stamp out their trade. Cosmetic solutions such as
prosecuting the culprits haven’t solved the problem. Neither have stringent
measures such as demolishing their joints or grandiose declarations of intent
to rehabilitate them.
So, prostitution in Ghana is a
major national problem to be addressed with pragmatic measures that will not
result in a dehumanization of the prostitutes or their being rendered idle to
swell the pool of social misfits.
The high unemployment rate in the
country is a major factor that promotes this trade. It is not booming because
the practitioners delight in offering their bodies to all manner of clients
without restraint. It is flourishing because the practitioners are desperate
and have no other option but to fall back on their natural assets to eke out
their livelihood.
Young and old women, school
drop-outs and school-going nubile ones are all over the cities and towns (or
even nooks and crannies in the rural areas), practising this trade with
impunity. Ask them and they will tell you that it is their answer to the
unemployment problem that has reduced them to social wrecks. Desperate to make
a living from their bodies, they are not perturbed by the associated health
hazards nor is their trade monitored properly to be dealt with in any civilized
manner.
Now that the government is even moving
to tax condoms, one can imagine the negative implications. The government seems
not to understand the challenges posed by these women of low repute who,
through no fault of theirs, are caught up in prostitution. Is there anything at
all that can be done at the official level to tackle this problem in a humane
manner?
Well, the Swiss have taken the
lead to control prostitution and ensure that both the practitioners and the
state benefit from it. While the practitioners will be supported to make money,
they are expected to pay tax to support the system. What could be better than
this quid-pro-quo arrangement?
Certainly, prostitution will
still carry its stigma but the practitioners will be assured of official
support to practise their trade in whatever measure of dignity their new status
and working conditions will allow. And it will be the quickest means for
self-employment, as is evident in the Swiss case.
It all boils down to joblessness
and the resultant hardships suffered by the females. Knowing very well that
they already have the precious gift of Nature, what else to do but to exploit
it? And when they do so too, they are easily targeted for open humiliation when
the security services swoop on them.
There is no indication that the
government can create jobs for the ever-increasing population (of women), which
is alarming because the devil will definitely find jobs for the idle hands. For
the women, no job can come more easily than selling their bodies to make a
living. Life must go on; not so?
The Swiss authorities deserve
commendation for taking the bull by its horns, not by its tail as we in Ghana
do. They have blazed the trail in giving prostitution its place in the national
consciousness. Is this Swiss project attractive enough for Ghana to adopt? Or
will the authorities continue to look on callously for the situation to worsen?
There is too much moral decadence and the government must step up its game to
control the situation. Is anybody listening at all?
I shall return…
·
E-mail:
mjbokor@yahoo.com
·
Join
me on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/mjkbokor
·
Contact
me through http://mjkbokor.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/writers-relief/
for solutions to your writing problems.
No comments:
Post a Comment