Everyone is not equal

On the face of it, the progressive laws put in place to provide people living with HIV/AIDS free antiretroviral drugs, a pension, and to protect them from discrimination in the workplace, demonstrate the Mauritius government?s willingness to tackle the pandemic.

But when one looks beyond the paper the laws are written on, it becomes clear that everyone is not equal. Sex workers are trapped continuously in a vicious cycle of stigma and discrimination, because of their occupation and their sex.

On the face of it, the progressive laws put in place to provide people living with HIV/AIDS free antiretroviral drugs, a pension, and to protect them from discrimination in the workplace, demonstrate the Mauritius government’s willingness to tackle the pandemic.

But when one looks beyond the paper the laws are written on, it becomes clear that everyone is not equal. Sex workers are trapped continuously in a vicious cycle of stigma and discrimination, because of their occupation and their sex.

Sex workers living with HIV/AIDS have no pension and have faced consistent discrimination in a system that criminalizes them and not their male clients. Because they are shunned by society, sex workers fall through the loop and never benefit from the laws that are put in place to protect us all.

Poverty, gender inequality and the unequal gender power relations have increasingly made women vulnerable to HIV infection.

It is well known that women turn to sex work as the only means to survive and to provide the basic needs for their children. Because they are poor, they often do not have the power to negotiate safer sex with their clients when the choice is between their health and food. And, many sex workers in Mauritius also turn to drugs to help them withstand the victimization they face daily in their work.

The approach taken by the government to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Mauritius, continues to shun the needs of sex workers who are disempowered by the system, and who may carry the double stigma of being both sex workers and drug addicts.

Everywhere they turn, they find doors closed. According to the director of PILS, an organisation which works with people living with HIV/AIDS, shelters run by government and non-governmental organisation are reluctant to accommodate sex workers. “  Very often during our counseling sessions, we come across sex workers who have children, are on drugs and who have Hepatitis C. They want to go for rehabilitation, but we do not know where to send them.”

With the growing use of drugs such as heroin among poor women in Mauritius, especially sex workers, the sharing of needles has increased double-fold their risk of contracting HIV. “Women are so poor that they cannot buy needles. I have witnessed 50 persons sharing the same needles,” said a social worker at PILS.

According to PILS, 75 percent of sex workers are intravenous drug user (IDU) and 25 percent of them are HIV positive. There is now a special unit called the Boolux Centre which caters for people living with HIV, but sex workers are afraid to go for treatment, not only because of the stigma attached to their work, but in a country where sex work is illegal they are afraid of being caught by the police.

 It also is very difficult for PILS to establish a lasting relationship with sex workers as they have to change their workplace once they have been identified by the police. They also are afraid they will loose their work once clients know they are HIV positive. Our policy of making prostitution a clandestine activity is having extremely harmful consequences for sex workers’ health.

A band-aid approach to tackling the HIV/AIDS pandemic can no longer be the solution. Mauritius must confront that fact that within the nation that is viewed externally as the ‘tiger of the Indian Ocean’, there are vulnerable groups who do not receive equal access to health care and social services, thus making them always vulnerable to HIV infection.

Laws that protect people living with HIV/AIDS must be applied equally regardless of one’s sex, social status or class. And more fundamental changes are needed at all levels within the society to address the unequal gender power relations which drive women into sex work and keeps them there.

 Loga Virahsawmy is a writer and chairperson of  Mauritius Media Watch.

 This article is part of the GEM Opinion and Commentary Service that provides views and perspectives on current events.