Tour operator urged to help promote safe sex
WESTERN BUREAU — Gordon Brown, chairman of the Western Regional Health Authority (WRHA), has urged tour operator, Air Jamaica Vacations to throw its support behind major thrusts to promote safe sex practices.
“I challenge Air Jamaica Vacations to promote safe sex practices even as you sell the relaxed, carefree aura of a Jamaican vacation,” Brown told the company’s president, Mark Adams and employees at the Cornwall Regional Hospital recently.
He was speaking at the opening of the recreation room on the hospital’s pediatric ward which Air Jamaica Vacations prepared over a five-week period.
Adams said he was not averse to meeting the challenge but he said that in the best interest of tourism they would do so only after engaging health officials in further dialogue.
“I think we have to be very careful with that (challenge). It could come as more of a negative in selling tourism. A lot of times people bring up things but then you have to look at them to see exactly how you can do something responsibly for all parties. So I’m not doing anything instantaneously to pick up the challenge,” Adams said. “We’ll look at it. I think it needs further dialogue between the Ministry of Health and his (Brown’s) department and ourselves.”
Brown agreed with Adams that further dialogue would be beneficial to all concerned.
Said Brown: “We definitely need to come up with a programme that will be inoffensive to everyone including guests, employees and Jamaicans alike. And, we need to package it in a way that shows the best of us and at the same time is conscientious and which will heighten consciousness. We will have to be knocking heads,” he said.
“St James is the tourist capital of Jamaica but it is also the parish with the second highest number of AIDS cases. We cannot afford to ignore the relation between the tourist industry and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In promoting safer practices we are protecting our main source of revenue (tourism),” Brown said.
Dr Janice Alexander, the parish’ medical officer of health (MOH) agreed with Brown.
“There is fairly compelling correlational evidence (of this). If you look at the parishes with the highest and most rapidly increasing rate it is all the parishes that are big in tourism. It is not St Thomas with a rural farming economy. It is St Ann, St James, Westmoreland with Negril and Hanover,” the MOH told the Observer, adding that it was time to stop denying the relationship between the two and begin to focus on remedying the situation.
“We have for years tried to sidestep that and probably wish it away… (But) we have fairly strong evidence that there is a sector in society who target foreigners to offer them sexual services,” she said. “If we can highlight to tourists that they are all at risk and it’s not just to say Jamaica has a high rate so you are at risk here. But rather, whether it’s high rate or low rate, the fact is that unprotected sex is going to put you at risk because (although) Jamaica (is) a land of sun, sea and sand it doesn’t mean the rest of the world’s problems don’t affect us.”
The MOH said promoting safe sex practices to tourists could be achieved “tastefully”, without negatively impacting the industry.
“I think it can be done tastefully. Just a reminder that there is not a line separating us from the rest of the world so people need to keep their heads on so they won’t do things you wouldn’t normally do,” the MOH said.
Brown, who has chaired the WRHA for just under two years, shared her view.
“Jamaica is not the first destination that has had to launch an assault on the issues concerning human sexuality and behavioural patterns… Air Jamaica Vacations will not have to become involved in a way, which may produce the undesirable effect of marketing or pushing Jamaica as a sex tourism destination,” Brown told the Observer. “I think it is sufficient for one to find a discrete but engaging way to heighten the awareness of visitors who may be travelling via Air Jamaica of the need for caution.”