DHAKA: Street sex workers are across Bangladesh are being increasingly exposed to HIV and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) resulting in death and infertility.
Rampant unprotected heterosexual intercourse with multiple partners is fuelling the spread of veneral diseases in urban and rural areas to the dismay of authorities monitoring health conditions in the country.
Surveys reveal that sex workers and their clients, besides transgenders, are transmitting HIV and STD virus primarily because they do not take basic precautions like using condoms.
Researchers told banglanews24.com that street sex workers contracting HIV through unprotected sex with HIV infected men and sexual abuse is growing alarmingly and becoming a national problem.
Despite having a low HIV-infection rate - less than 1% - Bangladesh is staring at an HIV epidemic due to the sharp rise in the number of sex workers and unpopularity of condoms considered the most effective shield against AIDS the world over.
In Bangladesh, sex workers in brothels as well as on the streets, do roaring business in terms of client turnover. Women working in brothels nationwide averaged 19 clients a week and street workers reported between 12 and 16 in different cities.
But prostitutes and customers alike are dangerously indifferent to condoms exposing themselves to death in the bargain. There seems to be very little awareness of how HIV and STD spread and how condoms can combat both effectively.
Non-government organization, Rainbow Nari O Shishu Kallyan Foundation and LRB Foundation in their studies on street beggars at Kamrangirchar, Lalbagh and Polashi in Dhaka showed that 40-45 percent of homeless beggars (adult male) indulge in multi-partner sex with less than 10 percent of them using condoms.
Surveys show that prostitution is rampant in towns which attract a lot of tourists. The growth of tourism and connectivity has come as a boon for the sex industry. But unfortunately, little is being to combat its byproducts - HIV and STD.
Sex workers operating independently or controlled by agents can be seen soliciting customers at railway stations, bus stands and cinema halls before making their way to cheap hotels or desolate spots.
GHARONI Executive Director, Roushan Ara Rekha, an expert in her own right, told banglanews, “On a regional basis, infected men have the chance to outnumber infected women by 1 to 3 or more, since commercial sex clients, injecting drug users and gays are major contributors to the rapid growth of the epidemic at the primary stage.”
“This male/female ratio is expected to drop as the epidemic spreads into the general population through spread of HIV from clients to sex workers to their regular partners and spouses,” she said.
Association for Social Advancement and Rural Rehabilitation (ASARR) Executive Director MCM Lokman Hossain said as conventional perspectives on prostitution is still repressive, moralizing and controlling, and treating the customers as objects rather than active subject.
“Sadly, customers don`t figure when when measures to curb HIV and STDs are discussed, or in government policies to combat the looming epidemic" he added.
BDST: 1658 HRS, FEB 02, 2014
