14th International AIDS Conference Barcelona, Spain - July 7-12, 2002

Int Conf AIDS 2002 Jul 7-12; 14:(abstract no. WeOrE1279)

Jenkins C, Rahman H, Jana S
USAID, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

BACKGROUND: In Bangladesh, the status of women in society is very low and many are subject to violence. Violence perpetrated against female sex workers by police and thugs known as mastans is widespread. Both behavioral surveillance and project monitoring has revealed high levels of violence against female sex workers.

METHODOLOGY: In 1998, at drop-in centres for street sex workers, SHAKTI (CARE) workers recorded the number of women in each group who stated they had been raped, beaten or robbed by police or mastans during the previous week. The data presented were collected at 444 group education sessions among 4,750 women between September 1998 and October 1999. These figures are complemented by the results of the National HIV Behavioural Surveillance, a probability sample of street and brothel sex workers, carried out in 1998-99 and yearly thereafter.

RESULTS: Per week on average police beat 16% of sex workers questioned, and raped 6%. Mastans raped 8% per week. Surveillance among 540 street sex workers revealed 49% had been raped by police and 68% by mastans. Brothel sex workers were better protected, but, in the following survey year, brothels were under attack by political forces, and violence in brothels had increased. Levels of violence were found to influence condom use.

CONCLUSIONS: The importance of violence against sex workers as an impediment to HIV prevention is great. Similar situations have been recorded in numerous countries as part of a crack-down on prostitution. However, when such policies do not protect sex workers' rights to obtain HIV prevention services, HIV prevention efforts are diminished.

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WeOrE1279

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