Don advocates registration of sex workers

Federal and state governments have been urged to register commercial sex workers in the country in order to control the spread of HIV/AIDs and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the society.

The call was made by a Professor of Clinical Microbiology, Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Ibadan, Prof. Rasheed Bakare, in an interview with journalists shortly after delivering his inaugural lecture, titled, ‘Microbes and morals, an unlikely love affair’ at the Trenchard Hall, University of Ibadan.

He said researches had shown that the commercial sex workers were not the most dangerous group but the unidentified prostitutes.

“The identified prostitutes don’t constitute health hazards to the society because of the care they undergo. The policy of ‘no condom, no sex’ is not practised among the street sex hawkers who are also the unidentified ones.”

According to him, abstinence is the only potent weapon against STDs.

Bakare, who made reference to personalities like Adolf Hitler and Napoleon Bonaparte as victims of STDs, said, “Venereal disease is a disease and not a crime. It should no longer be regarded as shameful, abhorrent evidence of an individual’s degraded moral character. There is no relationship between sexually transmitted infections and the victim’s moral character.”