The Caribbean nation could make $3 billion from taxing sex workers
A Jamaican official says taxing prostitutes would bring in $3 billion to the government, reports the Jamaican Observer. Prostitution is illegal in the Caribbean nation, but having a system that will regulate and decriminalize prostitutes will give the government money to provide them with more health services, the health official said at the launch of the 2008 Knowledge, Attitude, Belief and Practices (KABP) survey. “I am not saying that we must go and legalize it, but we must decriminalize it and regulate commercial sex work in order to have greater reach,” Dr. Kevin Harvey, senior medical officer in the country’s National HIV/STI Program said. The tax would be done mostly for the prostitutes’ benefit, he insisted. The calculated $3 billion in taxes would fund Jamaica ’s HIV program and help them reach out to prostitutes with safe-sex education material and other health services. Prostitutes (or commercial sex workers, as the ministry refers to them) are the most at risk of contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. According to figures from the country’s health ministry, 9 percent of prostitutes have the virus. “We could have access to providing linkages with our training education program and our rehabilitation program,” he said, also mentioning that many of the nation’s prostitutes are addicted to drugs. The tax, part of a five-year strategic plan to improve health conditions of the nation’s prostitutes, notes that the government as a whole is not stepping up to the plate in helping to prevent the spread of disease. “There is little support from political and other high-level leaders for messages of intervention dealing with risk reduction and increased access to treatment and care targeted at certain at risk groups,” the plan said. “This translates to a political environment that offers minimal support for any policy position or law reform seeking to increase access to condom use and treatment.”

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