Sex workers request state protection

Denu (V/R), May 9, GNA - Commercial Sex Workers at Akakpodzi, a known brothel in the border town of Aflao, have reportedly requested the state to provide them with Police protection to enable them operate unhindered.

The request was necessitated by alleged harassments of clients of the brothel by criminals, who waylay them and rob them of monies and other valuables.


A member of the newly constituted Child Labour Committee, formed under the International Labour Organization (ILO) project on child labour eradication, who requested anonymity, made the comment at a workshop at Denu on Monday.


Another member, a Girl-Child Education Advocate, who also requested anonymity, said the location of the brothel, which shared a compound with a basic school until recently when a wall was built to partition them, was a concern for parents and teachers.


The Girl-Child Education Advocate said academic work in the school was often distracted by patrons of the brothel, some of whom came out into the open, from the makeshift rooms of the sex workers to finish dressing up, to the amusement of the curious pupils.

The 15-member District Committee is made up of heads of departments and agencies, including the police, health, agriculture, social welfare, district assembly and education.


Other departments represented on the committee are National Commission of Civic Education (NCCE) and the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ.


Twenty districts in all were selected for the ILO project, called the Time Bound Project (TBP) for the Elimination of the Worst Form of Child Labour (WFCL) in the country.


A child labour monitoring system was adopted to check the commercial sex exploitation of the child, child domestic servitude, including trokosi, hazardous commercial engagement of the child in agriculture, fishing, mining and trafficking.