PROSTITUTION should be made legal, as this would add to the economy and was generating jobs and earning an income for some, a Cabinet Minister demanded yesterday.

“Prostitution or sex work is practised in Namibia, that is a reality and it should be legalised,” Youth, Sports and Culture Minister Kazenambo Kazenambo said in the National Assembly, causing a stir.
He was speaking on the national strategic framework on HIV-AIDS, which was tabled in Parliament last week.

“I am appealing to the powers that be that from an economic viewpoint, let us legalise prostitution as it generates jobs and an income,” said Kazenambo.

“Some countries have legalised sex work and others even have a sex tourism industry.”

Environment and Tourism Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah and Deputy Speaker Loide Kasingo reminded the House that this topic had been debated before in the House.

DTA president Katuutire Kaura said that on the B 1 road near the Van Eck power station outside Windhoek young girls were selling their bodies for sex.

“On the other side of the same road you find ladies selling grass they have cut, wood and the seeds they collected of camelthorn trees. Is that not a better way to earn an income? What kind of morality does the minister want to encourage?” Kaura wanted to know.

Minister Kazenambo replied that he was aware of moral concerns about sex work, “but if people are poor and need food and must find an income to fill their stomachs”, then prostitution was an economic activity.

According to him, children as young as 11 or 12 years old were selling their bodies in the city centre.

Local and Regional Government Minister Jerry Ekandjo said the young people involved in prostitution should rather be encouraged to cut and sell grass and tree pods. “If you legalise prostitution then nobody will work [regularly] anymore,” Ekandjo argued.

Kazenambo further claimed that there were very young girls who allegedly had Cabinet ministers and traditional leaders as clients and received money and gifts for their ‘services’.

Deputy Speaker Loide Kasingo proposed that Kazenambo’s plea to legalise prostitution should be turned into a motion to be tabled in the House.

“The motion could then be looked into by a parliamentary standing committee to hear from the people on the ground what the thoughts are about legalising prostitution,” Kasingo said. “It is a very serious matter.”

http://www.namibian.com.na/news-articles/national/full-story/archive/2010/september/article/kazenambo-wants-prostitution-legalised/ 

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