Socio-Economic Status and Health Risk of Urban Commercial Sex Practitioners in Jos Metropolis, Plateau State, Nigeria

Commercialization of sex is becoming an eyesore in most densely populated urban areas of the world including Nigeria. The study conducted in Jos Metropolis was aimed at investigating the socioeconomic status, health risk of commercial sex practitioners as well as their level of contentment in the trade. A combination of purposive and stratified random sampling techniques were employed to select 141 participants for the study, from 11 brothels in Jos North and Jos South, L.G.As of Plateau State. A semistructured questionnaire instrument was constructed and administered to the respondents to generate requisite data. Simple descriptive statistics, with the aid of SPSS version 16 was used to analyze the data. Results obtained indicated that 44% of the respondents were between the 20-25 age bracket and over half (54%) of the respondents completed primary school education. About 43% of the respondents earned between #52,000 to #260,000 as annual income from the sex trade. A whooping number (86.5%) of the respondents hardly go for medical check-up to ascertain their health status. A greater number (mean = 54.6%) of the respondents had good knowledge of the health risk inherent in joining the commercial sex practice and an upward of 57% would quit the profession in exchange for any serene jobs that pay off. Therefore, the paper recommended the need for public enlightenment among the youth, introduction of sex education in all educational curricula, acquisition of entrepreneurial skills, creation of job opportunities and better parental care in order to curb promiscuity among youth.