Haiti: Prostitutes Share their Concerns about AIDS

For the first fifteen years after the first cases of AIDS were recorded in Haiti, women involved in commercial sex have shown themselves indifferent towards the repercussions of the epidemic. With time progressing and the spread of the virus causing HIV/AIDS accelerating, prostitutes now feel more and more concerned.

"I could not believe for a moment that AIDS really existed, until the day one of my friends was hit by the scourge of the century," said Katia Juste, who considers herself a nomad and now lives in Gonaives, located 171 kilometres North of Port-au-Prince.

Katia, who agreed to talk frankly, is 23 years old. She is already the mother of two children with no knowledge of the father’s whereabouts. "When I was 17, I already had affairs with many men at the same time," she confided laughing. In those years, she travelled from one hotel to another in all of Haiti’s big cities of Haiti, looking for the best affairs.

"Before my best friend’s illness - she introduced me to this business - I did not want to hear anything about AIDS, and considered offering condoms an insult to my person," Katia indicated. She emphasised that the problems and worst possible situation, which she saw her friend endure convinced her that AIDS was real.

Katia’s friend passed away in the beginning of May 2000, after much money and time were spent at the voodoo priests.

"Today I am aware of the level of spread of the disease, due to our ignorance, fear of humiliation, which is part and parcel of this illness in Haitian society and our incredibility," she said with pain.

"Here, we are called ’Missionaries’, meaning that day and night we are looking for clients in the hotels. In a certain sense, I accept this label because I am committed to the ’mission’ of HIV prevention" 16-year-old Denise Pierre-Fils said. "No one in the world can pay me enough money to have unprotected sex," she said with disdain.

Dishevelled, her face heavily made-up like a queen about to board a carnival float, Denise believes that prostitutes - men and women - are the most likely to spread HIV, because of their significant mobility across the country in search of occasional partners. Therefore, she said, they should be the main targets of ongoing awareness campaigns against the disease.

" ’Missionary’ day and night, I do not know my health status. I just hope that I have not been infected as yet and will never be infected, keeping up the fight against the epidemic," she said a bit distressed by the death of her older sister and two of her friends because of AIDS.

Nineteen-year-old Jessica Saget thinks that AIDS should be the subject of daily awareness raising, in homes, bars, dance restaurants, classrooms, as well as churches. She moved into the "Merci Jesus" hotel in Gonaives three years ago. In the early morning, she criss-crosses the city in order to find business for the night ahead.

According to another prostitute, met in Miragoane, the Haitian Government should make the biggest commitment, putting infrastructure in place for poor people. "I live like this because my life was wasted by my parents’ poverty and men’s lies," she said.

In this city, located 96 kilometres west of Port-au-Prince, prostitutes are called "misses of the night," a label considered humiliating by most young women, who practice prostitution somewhat secretly. Only women from the Dominican Republic or other areas of the country practice their profession openly. The town is so small that everybody knows everybody.

The prostitutes encountered in Miragoane criticise machismo, which is culturally strong in the country and tends to encourage multiple sexual partners. "Under the pretext of virility, many men do not agree to use condoms to protect themselves and others," they confided, while stressing that they are concerned about AIDS, but have no choice because of socio-economic needs.

"Although most of our clients who arrive by boat take this precaution, they drop it very quickly as soon as the relationship looks like it will get serious," three prostitutes explained, among them two Dominicans, who go back and forth between Haiti’s coastal cities. They resent the fact that, too often men step on women’s right to enforce protected sex.

"When I want to use a condom, the men always shout that they won’t pay," one reiterated, indicating that most cases of infection are due to this type of behaviour from men, who take pleasure in abusing the safety of the female prostitutes.

"This is how I got infected, even though I always wanted to put on a condom before any contact," said a prostitute who works in Port-de-Paix, 257 kilometres North of the capital. Indicating that she has always wanted to protect her clients, the 31-year-old prostitute said that they (the clients) often refuse to use a condom under the pretext that it hinders their enjoyment.

"So under these circumstances, one can get infected from every sexual encounter," she said, explaining that she usually has more than 5 such encounters per day with different partners.

Currently, a situation is developing in the Haitian capital, which is regrettable at least. Dozens of women, most of them teenagers, sell sex in the poorer areas at nightfall. Others work day and night in one room. From morning to night, unprotected sex has a very low price downtown. The country’s dire socio-economic situation is among the main reasons for their involvement in such a practice, women and teenagers explain.

In broad daylight, sitting along the road or in the entrance to their room, prostitutes cheerfully invite those of the opposite sex passing by. Often, before concluding the deal, the potential client asks: "How much madam/miss/darling?" And the answer is immediate: "15 Gourdes (less than US$1) at least, depending on your generosity, Sir/young man."

Despite the efforts of programmes to prevent HIV through education and awareness campaigns, the fact is that poverty remains a determining factor in its spread.

Edited from "AIDS: Haitian prostitutes talk without shame," Island Beat series, mediaNET Bulletin (December 2000) (http://www.panosinst.org/Island/IB38e.htm. Sponsored by the Panos Institute of Washington, DC and Port-au-Prince, Haiti.