Prostitution and HIV

Facts about Prostitution and HIV

Prostitution has been a major cause for the propagation of HIV. The sex workers are the most common group of people who professionally indulge in sex with multiple partners. No doubt, that at one point of time, they might have encountered with a HIV positive person. Since then, they have transferred the virus to several other clients.

Many of these sex workers are injected drug users. This is especially true in South East Asia. Therefore, many of these sex workers acquire the disease through injection of needles rather than sex. It has been found that 48% of all AIDS infected sex workers are injected drug users. Only 8% of the sex workers acquired the disease from their clients.

Therefore, prostitutes are regarded as one of the ‘key risked groups’. However, the prevalence of prostitution and HIV is not the same everywhere. For e.g. in USA, spread of HIV through prostitution is very minimal, and hence it is not a big matter of concern. Although in Asia and Africa, prostitution is the driving force for the propagation of the disease. Therefore, it is always better to study the continents individually, to see the impact of prostitution and HIV.

Latin America:

In Latin America, the prostitutes and their clients account for almost one sixth of all HIV patients. However, its impact varies sharply from one place to the other.

Asia:

Asia is the worst affected continent with prostitution and HIV propagation. In most part of it, like India and China, the disease was actually introduced to the general masses due to prostitution. In India, the percentage of HIV amongst the sex workers is nine times higher than that of the general public. In China, it is 20% and in the rest of the South East Asia, the percentage rises up to 50%.

Sub Saharan Africa:

It has been found that Prostitution and HIV is a major challenge in most Sub Saharan Nations. The excessive poverty leads to high rate of skin trade and child prostitution. In an average about 49% of all sex workers in the Sub Saharan nations are infected with HIV. Ethiopia has the maximum cases of sex workers infected with HIV, a whopping percentage of 73%.

Other facts related to prostitution and HIV:

• Chances of contracting HIV is higher amongst the sex workers who are also injected drug users
• Transgender sex workers and male sex workers are more vulnerable to HIV than female sex workers. This is because, in case of male- female sexual activity, condom can act a barrier.
• To some people, sex workers are responsible for propagation of the disease. While another school of thought, identifies the role of sex workers in checking the disease, as most of them enforce the practices of safe sex and other preventive measures.

A lot of measures are being taken to curtail this mode of propagation of the HIV virus. Most nations, both advanced and developing, organize rigorous HIV training campaigns in brothels, so that the sex workers can encourage safe sex. Other preventive measures, like punishments and fines for visiting brothels, have already been proved to be a failure. Therefore, most of the nations have resolved to uproot this problem by addressing its major cause, that is prostitution.