ABIDJAN, Dec 7 (AFP) - Monesta and her friends live in dingy rooms behind a popular cinema theatre in the teeming Abidjan quarter of Adjame where they ply the world's oldest trade.
"Good morning, ladies! It's time for the condoms!" trills Sibiri Beban, cheerfully entering a dimly-lit corridor around which the girls live.
Beban, who sports a cap with the words "Generation without AIDS," works for the national programme against AIDS (PNLS) -- and frequents the poorest Abidjan areas to promote the three Ps programme -- prevention, protection of free women, and protection of their partners.
The basic objective is to sensitise prostitutes to the use of condoms.
Sometimes Beban arrives with "presents" ... or rubbers. But he also asks after each girl, often offers encouragement and makes contact with new streetwalkers.
Ivory Coast is the worst-hit country in west Africa with an HIV prevalence rate of more than 10 percent.
Beban said his modus operandi involved the distribution of condoms and information.
"At first I distribute condoms, two by two. It's not much but one can give some general information with them. My first objective in a new area is to explain what the disease entails and what causes it, talk about condoms and finally talk about Koumassi."
Koumassi, is a medical centre in another part of Abidjan, which is run with US aid and targets prostitutes and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.
"Every week there is a visit to the medical centre. There is a bus which takes us there. They give us rubbers, there are check-ups and medical examinations," said Fati, a matronly madam from Niger.
Her face decorated with henna, Fati oversees 12 Haussa girls from Niger who work for her.
"Here there are no sick girls," she said, speaking through an interpreter. "If there are no condoms, the girls don't do the clients. There are many men who want to do it without, but I don't allow that because of the disease."
Activist Beban, conscious of his responsibilities, questions whether the prostitutes can always maintain that safe-sex stance: "And what if they (the customers) say 10,000 (CFA francs or 15 euros, dollars). If they say 50,000?" -- 10 to 100 times more than the going rate for a "quickie".
The response is clear.
"You can take the money, which is a lot, and if you fall ill, what do you do? Girls, refuse if you are in good health... you will end up spending much more if disease follows," said Adisa, a prostitute, to cheers from the madam and Beban.
Beban covers 80 brothels in Abidjan, where prostitutes -- mainly foreigners -- live. He says he is in contact with an estimated 4,000 girls and says he distributed three million condoms last year.
He says the prevalence rate of HIV is on the decline among prostitutes -- thanks to the programme.
For infected women, Beban, however, admits he cannot do much.
"I counsel them to use condoms to avoid new infections which can make them fall ill faster. But I also know that they cannot afford treatement."
He also stresses the need to educate clients.
"I conducted a small survey in a little hotel the other evening. Out of 30 men, there weren't even 10 who used a condom. But that will change."
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