The high prevalence of commercial sex work in major towns and villages is not a revelation anymore. What is startling about the report is that for the first time it has been confirmed that males are also involved in sex work.
Whenever people consider commercial sex workers no one ever mentions the involvement of males in the trade, at least in our country. Thanks to the study entitled Sex Workers Emancipation Programme that had reached over 2, 751 commercial sex workers. Out of this figure 1, 250 are males and 1, 501 are females above the age of 18 and all of them are Batswana. These are sobering statistics considering that these numbers are confined to only one town. What is even astonishing is that some of the people involved are pregnant mothers and school going kids, some as young as 12 years. What we see in Selebi-Phikwe could be a tip of an iceberg. The problem could be worse in bigger towns. Other than burying our face in the sand, we need to confront the problem with new ideas other than the conventional way.
