Sunday, March 30, 2008 Mandaue taps CSWs in campaign for safe sex
THE MANDAUE City Government tapped the services of commercial sex workers (CSW), this time, in monitoring freelance CSWs and teaching them to practice “safe sex”.
Mandaue City Health Officer Oscar Quirante told reporters that they hired the so called reformed CSWs as “peer educators” because they basically speak the same language with freelance CSWs.
Freelance
They know who these freelance workers are and where they hang out.
They call the peer educators “reformed” because they already abandoned their previous trade and are now teaching their former peers healthy practices.
Earlier, the City Health Office (CHO) blamed the freelancers, who are unregistered, for the increase of sexually transmitted diseases (STD). But now they can be reached by the City’s volunteer peer educators.
Presently, the CHO is working with 10 peer educators and another 20 are undergoing training in ways to prevent the spread of STD.
They are being taught on how to explain to their peers the mode of transmission of STD and its prevention, and healthy practices.
Once they join the program, peer educators get a P2,000-monthly allowance, which is a better offer than the unsafe P50-per-sexual-favor they used to get.
Quirante said that this is partly the reason why there is a rise in STD cases lately, as they now submit a quarterly report of STDs and the intensified STD campaign with the inclusion of freelancers.
In 2007, they counseled and treated 867 STD-infected individuals. The number of STD cases are bigger now compared to the 553 in 2006. (OCP)
