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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
girls, knowledge, young people, discrimination, nonconsensual, coerced sex,
sexual partners, safe sex, sexually transmitted diseases, stds, stis, sexual
abuse, forced sex, risky sexual behaviour, business, multi partner sex,
heterosexual, injection, intravenous drugs users,
prostitution,
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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Combating
HIV/AIDS in
Bangladesh
HIV/AIDS epidemic is
described as the worst difficulty in the history of health. In fact, human
beings have been having great problems since time immemorial but there had
never been the worst complexity like AIDS. HIV/AIDS is similar to war but it
is worse than war in that when armies fight, it is mostly the men who are
killed but HIV/AIDS kills women and children. HIV/AIDS kills people in the
prime of their life. HIV/AIDS has no existing cure but there are several
ways it can effectively be controlled. After all, common adage has it that
prevention is better than cure. If an individual has enough prevention
mechanism, there is optimism that the virus can be triumphed upon by the
mankind.
Bangladesh is a Muslim
countries, Sex is every where not permitted except 15 brothels in
Bangladesh, Female Commercial Sex Workers (CSWs) in Bangladesh are generally
adolescent and they are more vulnerable to infection as their low status
makes them less able to negotiate the use of HIV/AIDS or STDs/STI prevention
methods e.g. condoms, also the young age makes them more biologically
vulnerable. The destiny of CSWs, in relation to their vulnerability to HIV
infection, depends mostly upon safe sex behaviors, with the use of condoms.
The problem of Female
Commercial Sex Workers (CSWs) in
Bangladesh exists for
more than two decade. There are larger numbers of CSWs is operating all over
the country, Bangladesh, significantly increases the risk of bridging the
high risk groups and moving infection into the general population. Men who
frequently visit commercial sex areas and have sex with CSWs and also with
their monogamous wives, function as a bridging population and significantly
aid the confluence of HIV/STDs into the innocent healthy population.
In generally
Bangladesh is a high
prevalence country of sexually transmitted diseases, particularly among
commercial sex workers. It is estimated about 40% CSWs infected in several
STDs/STI. Illicit sex is often considered as the highest risk segment of the
population whereby one could get HIV or STD due to the high-risk sex
activity itself and the often-additional injurious high-risk behaviors
practiced by sex workers e.g. injection drug use (IDU). CSWs are the
principal transmitters of HIV in many countries.
Certainly, adolescent
girls prostitution is booming in
Bangladesh. Adolescent
girls engage or are forced into prostitution for trafficking or
socio-economic reasons. Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation carried out
a recent field investigation, the research confirmed that adolescent girls
prostitution is widespread in Bangladesh, although hidden at first sight
from foreigners, especially in
Dhaka
city. Adolescent girls involved in prostitution are to be found in residence
homes converted into brothels or in hotels. The majority are aged 15-18.
Injecting drug use (IDU)
has been the main route of HIV transmission in
Bangladesh.
While the transmission through sexual contact is still widely considered a
major factor worldwide, but transmission through injection drug use (IDU) is
also increasing at an alarming rate. Here the needles through IDU become one
of the main factors of transmission. The drug user use drugs illegally. As a
result, they do not have access to enough and clean needles. They share the
same needles. This passes the virus in several ways: The first way is that
the virus gets transmitted through the same needles they share. The second
one is that they are influenced by drugs to become unconscious of using safe
sex. The third one is the fact that this category of people is said to be
having sex frequently and more carelessly with any individual than any other
group.
HIV/AIDS would turn
into an epidemic in
Bangladesh if drug
users do not stop sharing needles. A 2002-2003 CARE study found that nearly
40% of Bangladesh drug users use dirty needles; 4% of those were
HIV-positive, a figure more than double the 1.7% infection rate reported
among drug users in a 2001 study.
In some regions of
Sub-Sahara, the impact of HIV/AIDS epidemic, including its social and
economic impact, has been far-reaching. People have become impoverished,
agricultural and industrial productivity diminished, employment system
rampant, education system eroded and health care system and other care
providers overburdened.
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