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Female Sex Workers (female + sex_worker)
Selected AbstractsThe mental health of female sex workersACTA PSYCHIATRICA SCANDINAVICA, Issue 2 2010W. Rössler Rössler W, Koch U, Lauber C, Hass A-K, Altwegg M, Ajdacic-Gross V, Landolt K. The mental health of female sex workers. Objective:, There is limited information available about the mental health of female sex workers. Therefore, we aimed to make a comprehensive assessment of the mental status of female sex workers over different outdoors and indoors work settings and nationalities. Method:, As the prerequisites of a probability sampling were not given, a quota-sampling strategy was the best possible alternative. Sex workers were contacted at different locations in the city of Zurich. They were interviewed with a computerized version of the World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Additional information was assessed in a structured face-to-face interview. Results:, The 193 interviewed female sex workers displayed high rates of mental disorders. These mental disorders were related to violence and the subjectively perceived burden of sex work. Conclusion:, Sex work is a major public health problem. It has many faces, but ill mental health of sex workers is primarily related to different forms of violence. [source] Drug-related behaviors independently associated with syphilis infection among female sex workers in two Mexico,US border citiesADDICTION, Issue 8 2010Oralia Loza ABSTRACT Aims To identify correlates of active syphilis infection among female sex workers (FSWs) in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez. Design Cross-sectional analyses of baseline interview data. Correlates of active syphilis (antibody titers >1 : 8) were identified by logistic regression. Setting Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, two Mexican cities on the US border that are situated on major drug trafficking routes and where prostitution is quasi-legal. Participants A total of 914 FSWs aged ,18 years without known human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection who had had recent unprotected sex with clients. Measurements Baseline interviews and testing for syphilis antibody using Treponema pallidum particle agglutination (TPPA) and rapid plasma reagin (RPR) tests. Findings Median age and duration in sex work were 32 and 4 years, respectively. Overall, 18.0% had ever injected drugs, 14.2% often or always used illegal drugs before or during sex in the past month, 31.4% had clients in the last 6 months who injected drugs, and 68.6% reported having clients from the United States. Prevalence of HIV and active syphilis were 5.9% and 10.3%, respectively. Factors independently associated with active syphilis included injecting drugs (AOR: 2.39; 95% CI: 1.40, 4.08), using illegal drugs before or during sex (AOR: 2.06; 95% CI: 1.16, 3.65) and having any US clients (AOR: 2.85; 95% CI: 1.43, 5.70). Conclusions Among female sex workers in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, drug-using behaviors were associated more closely with active syphilis than were sexual behaviors, suggesting the possibility of parenteral transmission of T. pallidum. Syphilis eradication programs should consider distributing sterile syringes to drug injectors and assisting FSWs with safer-sex negotiation in the context of drug use. [source] Drug use among female sex workers in Hanoi, VietnamADDICTION, Issue 5 2005Trung Nam Tran ABSTRACT Aims To describe the drug use practices among female sex workers (FSWs) in Hanoi and to identify factors associated with their drug injecting. Design, setting and particicipants A two-stage cluster survey of 400 FSWs was conducted from June to September, 2002. Participating FSWs were both establishment- (160) and street-based (240), who were practising in seven urban and one suburban districts of Hanoi. Measurements Subjects were interviewed face to face using a structured questionnaire. Findings Among the middle-class FSWs, 27% used drugs, of whom 79% injected. Among low-class FSWs, 46% used drugs and 85% injected. Among drug-using FSWs, 86% had started using drugs within the past 6 years. Among drug-injecting FSWs, 81% had started injecting within the past 4 years. Cleaning of injecting equipment was not common among those who shared. Having drug-injecting ,love mates', drug-using clients, longer residence in Hanoi, more clients and not currently cohabiting were found to be independently associated with drug injecting among FSWs. Conclusions The high prevalence of injecting drug use among FSWs makes them susceptible to HIV infection, and is a threat to their clients. There is a strong relationship between drug-using FSWs and male drug-using clients and non-client partners. Intervention to prevent drug use initiation among non-drug-using FSWs and harm reduction among drug-using FSWs are urgently needed. [source] ,The Worst Thing is the Screwing' (1): Consumption and the Management of Identity in Sex WorkGENDER, WORK & ORGANISATION, Issue 2 2000Joanna Brewis This paper reviews qualitative data from academic research into prostitution, accounts from prostitutes themselves in the UK and Australia, and data from one of the authors' own research in New South Wales to analyse the ways in which female sex workers negotiate and construct their sense of themselves. This analysis is informed by the suggestion that, in the act of commercial sex, the prostitute's own body is being consumed by the client, which can be seen to place certain pressures on the relationship between sex workers' professional and personal identities. Our review suggests that individual workers' tactics for managing the contradictions of working as a prostitute and preserving self-esteem are both similar and different, even within two broadly culturally commensurable contexts, and, moreover, that not all prostitutes necessarily want to maintain a strict divide between work sex and non-work sex in every encounter. Moreover, even for those who do, the trials of maintaining the divide are considerable, as is the permeability of boundaries between work and intimate sex. [source] Viral load and physical status of human papillomavirus (HPV) 18 in cervical samples from female sex workers infected with HPV 18 in Burkina FasoJOURNAL OF MEDICAL VIROLOGY, Issue 10 2009Audrey Damay Abstract Viral DNA load and physical status might be predictive of either high-grade cervical lesions or disease progression among women infected by human papillomavirus (HPV) 16, but these virological markers have rarely been studied in HPV 18 infections. The relationships between HPV 18 DNA load, viral genome physical status and cervical squamous intraepithelial lesions were analyzed among female sex workers infected with HPV18 in Burkina Faso. HPV 18 E2 and E6 genes were quantitated by real-time PCR. Among 21 women infected with HPV 18, 67% of whom were HIV-1-seropositive, 11 (52.4%) had a normal cytology, 8 (38.1%) had low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions, and 2 (9.5%) had high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions. Total viral load and integrated viral load were higher in women with squamous intraepithelial lesions than in women with normal cytology (P,=,0.01 for both parameters). Total viral load and integrated viral load were higher in HIV-1-seropositive women than in those who were not infected with HIV (P,=,0.01, and P, 0.01, respectively). Total viral load or integrated viral load >1,000,copies/ng of DNA were more frequent in women with squamous intraepithelial lesions than in women with normal cytology (7/10 vs. 1/11; P,=,0.007) and in HIV-1-seropositive women (8/14 vs. 0/7 in HIV-uninfected women; P,=,0.02). Both HPV 18 DNA and integrated DNA loads might represent markers of cervical lesions. Prospective evaluations are needed to establish the value of these parameters to predict high-grade lesion or lesion progression. J. Med. Virol. 81:1786,1791, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Viral load and genomic integration of HPV 16 in cervical samples from HIV-1-infected and uninfected women in Burkina FasoJOURNAL OF MEDICAL VIROLOGY, Issue 6 2007Marie-Noelle Didelot Rousseau Abstract The relationships between human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV 16) viral load, HPV 16 integration status, human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) status, and cervical cytology were studied among women enrolled in a cohort of female sex workers in Burkina Faso. The study focused on 24 HPV 16-infected women. The HPV 16 viral load in cervical samples was determined by real-time PCR. Integration ratio was estimated as the ratio between E2 and E6 genes DNA copy numbers. Integrated HPV16 viral load was defined as the product of HPV 16 viral load by the integration ratio. High HPV 16 viral load and high integration ratio were more frequent among women with squamous intraepithelial lesions compared with women with normal cytology (33% vs. 11%, and 33% vs. 0%, respectively), and among women with high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions compared with women without high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (50% vs. 17%, and 50% vs. 11%, respectively). High HPV 16 DNA load, but not high integration ratio, was also more frequent among HIV-1-positive women (39% vs. 9%; and 23% vs. 18%, respectively). The absence of statistical significance of these differences might be explained by the small study sample size. High-integrated HPV 16 DNA load was significantly associated with the presence of high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (50% vs. 5%, P,=,0.03) in univariate and multivariate analysis (adjusted odds-ratio: 19.05; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.11,328.3, P,=,0.03), but not with HIV-1 or other high-risk HPV types (HR-HPV). Integrated HPV 16 DNA load may be considered as a useful marker of high-grade cervical lesions in HPV 16-infected women. J. Med. Virol. 79: 766,770, 2007. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Cross-border ,Traffic': Stories of dangerous victims, pure whores and HIV/AIDS in the experiences of mainland female sex workers in Hong KongASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 1 2005Kevin D. Ming Abstract:,In recent years, dramatically increasing numbers of mainland Chinese women have entered Hong Kong to engage in sexual labour. Public discourses on the threat of HIV/AIDS increasingly locate these women's bodies as sites of danger, colluding with pre-existing imaginations of mainland rural women as ignorant, desperate and deceptive in representing these women's penetration of Hong Kong's border as a primary means of infection of the Hong Kong body. Drawing on state, media and popular representations, and the narratives of female sex workers themselves, this paper examines the interwoven bio-medical, gendered, sexual and cross-border relationships that intersect in the experiences of mainland Chinese sex workers in Hong Kong. I argue that while images of disease and danger have been used to regulate these women's bodies, mainland female sex workers challenge these images by drawing on other popular stereotypes of mainland women as pure, feminine and traditional. Although images of the related but still ,other' figure of the mainland Chinese woman are powerful mechanisms for the regulation of these women's bodies, mainland female sex workers skilfully use inherent tensions in those images in resisting that control and in struggling to achieve their own personal and economic goals. [source] Demographic, migration status, and work-related changes in Asian female sex workers surveyed in Sydney, 1993 and 2003AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, Issue 2 2006C. Pell Objective: To compare demography, sexual health awareness, migration and workplace conditions of Asian female sex workers in Sydney in 1993 and 2003. Method: A Chinese interpreter and a Thaispeaking health education officer (HEO) were used to administer a questionnaire survey to Thai- and Chinese-speaking sex workers attending sexual health clinics in 1993. A follow-up survey, which included some women contacted at work as well as clinic attenders, was administered by Thai-and Chinese-speaking HEOs in 2003. Results: Ninety-one female sex workers were surveyed in 1993 and 165 in 2003. Median age increased (26 years vs. 33 years, p=0.000), as did numbers of Chinese- versus Thai-speakers (1993, 25.3% Chinese vs. 2003, 58.2% Chinese, p=0.000). In 2003, the women reported more years of schooling and better English skills. Fewer reported previous sex work (48.4% vs. 17.6%, p=0.000). Numbers currently or ever on a contract decreased sharply (27.5% vs. 9.1%, p=0.000) and the majority were apparently working legally. Condom use at work for vaginal (51.6% vs. 84.8%) and oral sex (39.6% vs. 66.1%) increased significantly (p=0.001). Chinese-speaking sex workers were less informed about HIV transmission and safer sex practices than were Thai sex workers. Drug and alcohol use was low. Conclusions and Implications: Positive changes have occurred in the conditions of Asian female sex workers surveyed over 10 years in Sydney. Maintaining current levels of health service delivery will ensure continued improvements in health and workplace conditions and address inequalities between language groups. [source] | |||||||||||||