ABUJA, Dec 7 (AFP) - Vivian Nyoko wears a low cut white top and tight denims as she perches on a dirty plastic chair outside a bar on a potholed trash-strewn dirt road in downtown Abuja, trying to lure clients.
The 22-year-old is one of more than one million women sex workers in Nigeria, the impoverished west African giant where as many as seven million people are infected with HIV or AIDS, according to non-governmental organisations.
"Of course I am scared of AIDS. But what am I to do?" Nyoko says, sipping from a beer bottle as loud distorted pop music blares out from the bar and occasionally a smell of sewage wafts into the hot night air.
"Of course I must make sure that men wear condoms when we have sex. Some men don't want to wear a condom, but then I fight them -- I am not stupid, I am not going to kill myself."
Nyoko came to Abuja four years ago from a poor village outside the town of Makurdi, a three-hour drive from the Nigerian capital, to fulfil her dream of becoming an actress.
"My father owns a very large orange farm and earns a lot of money. He loves me very much but when he dies my brothers will take everything he owns and divide it among themselves.
"That is how our culture works. I can't have eyes for my father's money. It is better for me to be a free woman and to make my own way.
"Now I am walking the streets, but I will only do it until I am an actress. I don't care what kind of actress I am. It can be on the stage or in movies -- I don't care."
Nyoko says she has never commanded less than 3,000 niara (20 dollars) for sex, but she is one of the better paid.
Near to where Nyoko sits, a vendor sells cigarettes and condoms by candle light. His clients appear to be mainly sex workers.
The fight against AIDS is one of the key topics of the four-day Commonwealth summit in Abuja, which opened on Friday bringing together heads of state and government from 52 mainly former British colonies.
There are about 15,000 prostitutes in Abuja alone and although no formal research has been done on the prevalence of HIV and AIDS in the city, non-governmental organisations say is the infection rate is "incredibly high" as men in Nigeria tend not to use condoms.
Irene Patrick, who runs a non-governmental organisation called Women's Health Education Development in Nigeria, says high class prostitutes who work at Abuja's upmarket hotels score big from wealthy clients during events like the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).
"There are different levels of prostitution in Nigeria. The high class call girls give business cards to the hotels and earn about 100 US dollars for sex," she says.
"The middle of the range prostitutes work in brothels in the city and earn about 500 naira (three dollars) a time.
"The bottom girls live in the villages around Abuja and charge a few cents for sex. Some of them have sex with up to 14 men a night."
Patrick says Nyoko's case is typical across Africa, where 6,500 people die each day from complications stemming from AIDS and 9,500 are infected with HIV.
"We have estimated that about two percent of Nigeria's female population are poverty-stricken prostitutes. Women are attracted to the money in the cities, but have to have sex to earn it -- this is probably a large reason why the HIV infection rate is so high."
Nigeria's government has taken steps to create public awareness about the disease. Large billboards on the side of Abuja's main road urge the public to "stop the spread of AIDS," while newspapers are full of informative articles.
But despite these efforts, Patrick says her organisation found that many men still preferred not to wear condoms.
"It is unbelievable at this stage of the disease, but many sex workers in Abuja say that their clients are ignorant about AIDS and refuse to use condoms. We do find that educating prostitutes is quite effective, because they tend to pass on their knowledge to their clients."
Commonwealth countries have yet to announce any specific AIDS strategies at their summit, although UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged them to give the disease more emphasis.
"It is spreading at an alarming rate. This disease is a terrible threat not just to human life, but to good governance and sustainable development," Annan said on World AIDS Day last week.
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