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tag: female,
male, commercial, floating, street, sex workers, aids, hiv, csws, idus, fsws,
girls, women, consensual, premarital, exmarital, sexuality, empowerment,
gender, education, prevention, dhaka, india, pakistan, bangladesh,
adolescent, teen, teenage, truck drivers. trafficking, epidemic, street
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abuse, forced sex, risky sexual behaviour, business, multi partner sex,
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men who have sex with men, msm, harassment, sugar daddies, relationships,
condom, polygamy, homosexuality, extra marital, relations, truckers, migrant
workers, gay, hijras, hermaphrodites, professional blood donors, heroin
smokers, hotel, brothel, street based commercial sex workers, casual sex
workers, so called sex workers, violence, exploitation, Rainbow Nari O
Shishu Kallyan Foundation, Mohammad Khairul Alam
Mohammad Khairul
Alam
Executive Director
Rainbow Nari O
Shishu Kallyan Foundation
24/3 M.C. Roy Lane
Dhaka-122
Bangladesh
rainbowngo@gmail.com
www.newsletter.com.bd
Tell: 880-2-8628908
Mobile: 01711344997
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Life
of Mobile
sex workers and great issue of AIDS
Bangladesh is still a
low prevalence country (HIV-infection rate is less than 1%), but there is a
potential for expanding HIV/AIDS epidemic in the future, because the country
is very receptive to HIV infection. The receptivity is due to increasing
trend of prostitution, domestic and international migration, urbanization,
poverty, and proximity to areas with advances epidemics and sexual
permissiveness or high-risk sexual behavior of members of certain groups of
people. HIV infection and AIDS cases in IDUs tend to increase within last
two years.
In
Dhaka
city, Mobile Female sex workers (M-SWs) are unusually vulnerable to physical
and sexual abuse by both close partners and clients/customers. Public health
interventions for M-SWs have to integrate basic services such as shelter,
social support, education, feasible employment opportunities, and prevention
of drug abuse and clients violence. There is a relationship between client
violence, drug use, and risks of HIV/STDs among M-SWs. It is crucial to pay
close attention to these relationships so that more effective policies and
programmes to serve M-SWs can be developed.
Mobile Sex Workers (M-SWs)
in Bangladesh
would play a critical role of HIV/AIDS infections. Due to the types of their
work, the lack of sexually transmitted infections (STI/STDs) awareness and
low acceptance of condom use, M-SWs represent a highly vulnerable group in
Bangladesh. The sharp rise in others sexually transmitted infections (STIs)
in Bangladesh contributes to the spread of HIV and may lead to a extensive
epidemic, as the heterosexual mode of others STI transmission accounts for
an increasing percentage of HIV transmission.
Studies of street
beggars conducted by Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation & L.R.B
Foundation in mid-2006s at Kamrangir Char, Lalbagh and Polashi in Dhaka city
in Bangladesh surveyors confirm the 40-45 per cent of homeless beggars
(adult male) indulge in multi-partner sex with less than 10 per cent of them
reporting condom use. Mobile sex workers are the main sex partners of them.
Mobile Sex Workers (M-SWs)
are closely associated with the tourism and transport industries where they
find a large supply of potential clients. Tourism, which provides additional
clients for sex workers, and transport workers, who exploit commercial sex
workers, facilitates transmission of the virus to the general population.
It is visible fact
that a large number of migrant and traveling or transport sector worker in
Bangladesh
several times meet mobile/ floating sex workers. As Prof. Abdul Quader
Palash aptly points out, “Mobility and migration are not in themselves risk
factors for HIV, but can create environment in which people are more
vulnerable. Separation from spouse, family and socio-cultural norms,
together with isolation and loneliness, and a sense of anonymity, can lead
to situations which make migrants and mobile workers more susceptible to
exposure to HIV. It is then carried back to their families, the intended
beneficiaries of the income from the migration.”
Mobile Sex workers
frequently suffer from physical and sexual violence. One study in
Dhaka
city by Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation, indicated that in the past
six months, 12% were forced into sex (raped) and 15% were beaten by their
clients to avoid payment.
However, Mobile Sex
Workers (M-SWs) and HIV/AIDS were not regarded as complex social phenomenon
in Bangladesh.
But it is suspicious, though there is no information about HIV/AIDS
prevalence among M-SWs and their clients, which can become a critical issue
of general public health, especially if we keep in mind that HIV/AIDS
prevalence among M-SWs and their client groups vary in deferent region in
Bangladesh.
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