Police destroy condoms; Choking war on HIV/Aids

The Kenya police and others from five countries were the subject of some very unkind words at the ongoing international Aids conference in Melbourne, Australia. Kenya’s Ministry of Health through several outreach groups distributes condoms to sex workers mainly in urban areas, but a Federation of Women Lawyers (Fida) study presented at the forum says policemen trail these workers harass them, arrest their clients and destroy the products since prostitution is illegal.

The 20th International Aids Conference was told how corrupt police officers in Mombasa and Nairobi trail social workers distributing condoms to prostitutes and pounce on both to demand bribes, sex or threaten them with arrest. Fida and the Bar Hostess Empowerment and Support Programme accused the police of routinely collecting and destroying condoms from distributors and users hence seriously hurting the fight against HIV/Aids. “While one arm of Government is working to get condoms into people’s hands, another is taking them away,” Megan McLemore of the international Human Rights Watch told the meeting yesterday. The study, Criminalising Condoms, was carried out in Kenya, Namibia, Russia, South Africa, the US and Zimbabwe. Locally, it was done by Fida and the Bar Hostess Empowerment and Support Programme through an international NGO, Open Society Foundations.



The delegates heard of how police routinely destroy condoms confiscated from sex workers by burning them, stepping on them, driving over them with cars, tearing or cutting them up, and throwing them in the gutter. Police find themselves in a dilemma because prostitution is illegal and there is no way they can officially justify helping sex workers break the law. Two months ago, the Nairobi County government passed a law that plans to drive out all sex workers from the Central Business District, a move that is seen by health authorities as retrogressive in the fight against HIV/Aids.