SWAA organises screening for porters(17/01/09)

Story: Jennifer Dornoo
THE Society For Women and Aids in Africa (SWAA), Ghana has organised a health screening exercise for 63 female porters at the Agbogbloshie Market.
The porters were counselled on HIV and also screened for the virus.
The screening exercise, which was organised by SWAA and funded by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), was to educate the porters on HIV and AIDS, its prevention methods and to make them know their HIV status.
The Executive Secretary of SWAA Ghana, Mrs Josephine Sackey, said the exercise was part of a legal literacy campaign to educate the young porters who were vulnerable to sexual abuse on their sexual and reproductive health rights.
She said it was also to afford them the opportunity to keep abreast of issues of gender violence and other forms of abuses and how they could resist them.
She said the main aim of the exercise was to empower the porters to be able to take safer decisions concerning sex and also protect themselves against HIV and AIDS.
Mrs Sackey said the porters had been counselled on how to prevent contracting HIV and the steps to take when one was infected.
She said those who tested positive at the end of the exercise would be directed to the appropriate institutions to seek help, while those who tested negative would be educated on where to seek help when they were abused.
It was clear from their participation that the porters were determined to know their HIV status. They, therefore, arrived early to check their status even before the officials of SWAA arrived at 10 a.m. to start the exercise.
A porter, Selina Mohammed, said though she was a bit nervous in finding out her HIV status, she was determined to know her status.
Another porter, Hamidu Fatima, said it was important for everyone to know his or her status and that was why she came to test.
Female condoms were distributed to the porters to protect themselves and they were also counselled to stick to one partner.