While technological advances are rendering some jobs obsolete, prostitution, the world's oldest profession, is enlisting new recruits who include even the most educated in society.
A new study on the HIV/Aids prevalence in communities in northern Uganda reveals that teachers in the region are increasingly taking up prostitution, which they say is more lucrative than teaching.
Teachers are now counted among the vulnerable people along the Kampala-Juba route (South Sudan), where sex trade is increasingly exposing them to AIDS, the Focal Officer for AIDS in Emergencies at the Uganda AIDS Commission, Ms Joyce Namulondo, has said.
"In Gulu, one of the prostitutes interviewed was a professional teacher. Asked why she had resorted to prostitution, she said she was making a lot of money out of this trade compared to teaching. She said she gets Shs1.5 million per month out of prostitution," Ms Namulondo said.
A primary teacher in Uganda earns a monthly salary of Shs130,000 while a secondary teacher earns about Shs250,000 per month. Shs1.5 million is what a primary teacher may earn in a year.
The Minister of Education and Sports, Ms Namirembe Bitamazire said prostitution among teachers was news to her. "I have worked in the education sector for a long time but I have never heard anything of that sort," Ms Bitamazire said.
The Ministry Spokesperson, Mr Aggrey Kibenge, said though he has not heard about teacher-turned prostitutes; a recent study done in both Uganda and Malawi indicated that HIV/AIDS prevalence among teachers was as high as 30 percent compared to the national prevalence rate of 6.7 per cent. This, however, was not tagged to prostitution.
The National Committee on AIDS in Emergency Settings (Nacaes), in partnership with International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Uganda AIDS Commission, and supported by UNAIDS, carried out a hot spot mapping to facilitate analysis of the context of HIV risk and vulnerability among high risk populations as highlighted in the country's National Strategic Plan for HIV/AIDS activities for 2007/2008 and 2011/2012.
The study, conducted between September 2007 and January 2008, identified nine spots in Uganda and Sudan where sex trade is booming.
The spots include: Arua Park in Kampala, Karuma, Bweyale, Migyera, Atiako, Gulu, and Bibia, Masindi, Nakasongola, and Gulu. The two sites studied in South Sudan include Juba and Nimule.
As a result of improved security in northern Uganda and South Sudan, job and trade opportunities have been created leading to increased volumes of human and heavy truck traffic on the Kampala -Juba highway.
Sex workers from both Uganda and Sudan have taken advantage of the situation to make ends meet. The type of people involved in sex trade are bar and lodge/hotel attendants, children from child-headed families, women widowed by conflicts, and surprisingly teachers among others.
Addressing participants during a workshop in Kampala on April 25, Ms Namulondo said whereas sex trade is booming on the Kampala/Juba route, limited use of condoms especially in Sudan was worrying.
She said that there has been an outcry that Ugandan girls, who are involved in sex trade in Sudan are not allowed to use condoms, an issue which she said was exposing them to HIV/AIDS.
"We were told that people there have shunned condom use because they want to produce more children and increase the population of the country," she said.
Presenting the findings, a consultant on the study, Dr Alan Ferguson, said transactional sex is well established on the Kampala-Juba highway. Dr Ferguson said most prostitutes are concentrated in Juba, Nimule border, and in Migyera in Masindi District.
There are about 500 sex workers at each of these spots. Dr Ferguson said the majority are migrant sex workers who keep moving from Uganda to Sudan or from Sudan to Uganda in search for greener pastures.
Recently, police in Sudan rounded up 700 prostitutes at Nimule border who were said to be Ugandans. Dr Ferguson revealed that the majority of people who pay prostitutes are truck drivers, 73.8 percent of whom are Ugandans, 8.6 percent Sudanese, 9.4 percent Kenyans, 1.9 percent Tanzanians and 5.8 percent from elsewhere.
According to the study, absence from home promotes risky sexual behaviour among truckers, said to be diffusion agents for HIV in East Africa.
A 2004/2005 study on the Mombasa-Kampala highway also revealed high levels of transactional sex and continued transmission of HIV.
This is because truckers spend most of their time on the road.
About 14 percent of the truckers interviewed during the new study said they had only spent 10-19 nights at home in the last 12 months.
Apart from the truckers, the study also identifies policemen, fuel dealers, health workers, soldiers, teachers, business salesmen as some of the people who buy sex along this route.
On the issue of condom use, 70.7 percent of the truckers said they always use condoms with sex workers, 68.4 percent of liaisons reported by sex workers involved condom use, and 16.4 per cent of sex workers reported exclusive condom use.
Dr Ferguson said there was no fixed charge for unprotected sex because whereas in some places sex workers were paid Shs50,000 for that kind of sex, in locations that are stricken by poverty like Karuma, prostitutes were being paid as low as Shs2,500 for unprotected sex.
Karuma is mainly occupied by the people who were displaced by conflicts in both northern Uganda and South Sudan.
Amuru District Chairman, Mr Anthony Atube, said poverty among child-headed families and women widowed by the northern rebellion was forcing some women and young girls to involve themselves in sex trade.
HIV/AIDS Focal Person for Gulu District, Mr John Charles Luwa, said young girls living in camps were fleeing the district to go to Sudan to engage themselves in sex trade with the hope of improving their livelihoods.
The HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in Gulu stands at 11.9 per cent. The mayor of Gulu, Mr Christopher Achire, said: "There is a lot that needs to be done because our sisters and brothers along the Kampala -Juba route are getting finished. People are aware that condoms exist but less than 10 per cent are using them."
Source: The Monitor (Kampala), 28 April 2008