Committee Rejects Grant To Hire Ex-Prostitutes

A Metropolitan King County Council committee has voted to reject an $80,000 federal grant to hire former prostitutes to teach safe sex and distribute condoms to working prostitutes.

The council’s Law, Justice and Human Services Committee on Tuesday voted 3-2 to recommend that the full council not accept the grant.

The grant, from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, would finance a county program that supporters say would help prevent the spread of AIDS.

But the three Republicans who voted against the grant called the strategy immoral and a waste of money.

“Prostitution is not an industry, it is a crime,” Councilman Chris Vance said.

Councilman Larry Gossett, a Democrat, blasted the naysayers.

“It’s absurd not to accept this grant,” Gossett said. “We are dealing with the lives of people - this is a life and death issue.”

Health officials said they would try to modify the grant proposal to satisfy concerns of the council’s Republican members before it goes to the full council later this month.

“This is a lifesaving intervention that is needed,” said Alonzo Plough, director of the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health. “We don’t condone the sex industry. But we are health workers and we have an obligation to prevent disease.”

The program county officials hope to start is known as Girlfriends Talking. It would hire former prostitutes for $8 an hour to provide working prostitutes with condoms, information on safe sex and a newsletter that highlights women who have successfully left prostitution.

The program is patterned after a $60 million demonstration project of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that operated in Seattle and five other cities from 1985 to 1994.