CPC helps to create awareness for the plight of local sex workers

By Victor Mukwevho

The Centre for Positive Care (CPC), based at Sibasa, celebrated International Sex Worker Rights Day on Friday, 3 March, by embarking on an awareness campaign to highlight the challenges sex workers experience.

Formed in 1993 and registered as an NGO in 1997, the CPC’s main objective is to reduce the spread of HIV/ AIDS and improve the quality of life for people living with HIV/AIDS.

According to Ms Mulalo Tshinanga, the organisation’s programme manager, the CPC is run in four districts in the Limpopo Province, namely Capricorn, Mopani, Vhembe and Waterberg. “Our mission is to prevent and mitigate the impact of STIs, HIV and AIDS by highlighting the plight of vulnerable and marginalised groups,” she said.

Tshinanga said that, even though they did not encourage people to become sex workers, they helped them to minimise the impact of spreading HIV/AIDS. “We also work closely with the Department of Health to help them get medical help from clinics without being harassed by nurses, as it happens a lot of the time.”

Tshinanga refuted the general assumption that sex workers are people who come from poor families. “There are also girls who come from middle-class families. Some are forced by peer pressure when they see others driving big cars and carrying expensive phones, but we are doing our best to help them to access medical care and to stop selling their bodies, if possible,” she said.

The CPC’s media liaison officer, Mr Mpfariseni Nevuwari, said the organisation was now also operating in Gauteng and Northwest Province.

For more information or assistance, call the CPC’s head office at Sibasa on 015 963 5076.