by Matt Wade, New Delhi January 8, 2011
SUMAN is proud of her boob job. It cost about $2500, a small fortune for most Indians, but comes with a ”lifetime guarantee” and the promise of higher earnings. Like many Indian transsexuals, known as hijras, Suman boosts her income with sex work. Breast enhancement operations, now easily available in big city hospitals, are increasingly popular among the naturally flat-chested hijras. Suman’s investment is paying handsome dividends.
We assess old age financial security in a sample of sex workers in India. Our analysis, based on primary data for 240 former sex workers and 340 current sex workers in the states of Karnataka and Maharashtra, highlights three features of their economic situation. First, former sex workers economically outperform female-headed households in the general population.
There are a number of people who earn their living directly or indirectly through commercial sex work. Exploitation, vulnerability, forced labour; servitude, stigmatization characterizes Commercial Sex Workers (CSW). A sense of immorality, criminality, and informality associated with their work keeps them excluded from mainstream society.
An article in AIDS Care.
Sexual behaviour studies are often challenged by sampling, participation and measurement biases, and may be unacceptable to participants. We invited 293 randomly selected female sex workers (FSWs) in Bangalore, India, to participate in a telephone survey, with condom breakage as the main outcome. Free cell phones were supplied and trained interviewers telephoned FSWs daily to ask about all sex acts the previous day.
The thesis is premised on the fact that India’s National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) employs the typology of female sex work in outreach and other components of the HIV programme in order to identify high-risk female sex workers (FSWs). However, the current typology – distinguishing between FSWs based on their main place of solicitation – may not adequately reflect the variation in HIV risk.
Durbar, (a sex worker group in Kolkata,) has been carrying out Anti
HIV/AIDS infection is a serious threat to the health and welfare of India. HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections (STI) are primarily propagated through heterosexual intercourse in India. Sex workers having multiple partners are considered to be conduits of virus transmission. Hence interventions targeting sex workers form a significant part of India’s effort to curb the HIV/AIDS pandemic within its borders.
As part of the baseline survey carried out during 2005-06, biological and behavioural data were generated on about 3200 female sex workers (FSWs), from eight districts of Andhra Pradesh (AP), India. This study describes the relationship between socio-demographic and behavioural factors with consistent condom use (CCU) and HIV among FSWs in AP.
An article in J Infect Dis. (2011) 204 (suppl 5): S1235-S1240.
Background: Female sex workers (FSWs) are vulnerable to physical and sexual violence at work. This article examines the prevalence of recent physical and sexual violence victimization and associations of type of sex work among a large sample of young FSWs.
The control of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STI) is a challenge in China, with female sex workers (FSW) and male clients suspected as bridge groups. This study used a 2006 national probability survey of 2,707 adult men. Among men 15–49 years old, the prevalence of FSW contacts last year was 4.2% (95% CI, 3.3–5.2) overall, with 7.2% (CI, 5.9–8.7) in urban and 1.8% (CI, 1.0–3.3) in rural areas.
