Title: Impact of law enforcement activities on the availability of HIV services in regions frequented by female sex workers.
Background:
Law enforcement agencies, including the police and immigration authorities, occasionally visit hotspots where female sex workers operate and many a time their visits result in the displacement of female sex workers from their established communities. Consequently, the FSWs are compelled to move from their usual locations to find alternative refuge. This ultimately disrupts the continuity of HIV service provision to this target population, as peer educators and case managers face challenges in locating and reaching female sex workers.
Description:
With the support of the USAID Strengthening the Care Continuum Project, facilitated by JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc., the West AIDS Foundation’s project team adopted the Social Network Strategy (SNS), an approach where identified high-risk peers, assume leadership roles within their peer groups and support the project team in reaching loss to follow up peers as these leaders remain well-informed about the locations of their peers. These peer leaders, have therefore continued to play a pivotal role in referring their members to consistently access HIV services as well as supported adherence to management by enabling the project team regardless of change of location of FSWs, to still reach them. As a result, the project team has been able to remain consistent in the provision of education on HIV/AIDS and PrEP, and enrolling those meeting eligibility criteria after screening and testing, confirming reactive clients’ results and enrolling all confirmed cases at a nearby health facility. The initiative also involved the distribution of condoms and lubricants to peers.
Lesson Learned:
- Disruptions in established FSW communities by unnecessary law enforcement agents’ presence, hinders consistent provision of HIV services to this population, creating difficulties for peer educators and case managers in locating and assisting the female sex workers.
- Service providers may need to adapt strategies and outreach methods such as SNS to address the dynamic challenges posed by such unnecessary and uncalled-for law enforcement interventions, to ensure continuity of HIV services
Conclusion:
There is the need for effective engagement with law enforcement agencies, for them to understand the consequences of their actions on the continuity of essential health services for female sex workers and to advocate for measures such as SNS, that minimize disruption to HIV service provision in the event of relocation of target groups.