Publications on Female Sex Workers (FSW)

This report is a summary of the methodology and findings of the Healthy Highways Project (HHP) HIV Risk Behaviour Surveillance Survey (BSS).

In China, in the early 1980s, sexually transmitted diseases (STD) started to increase steeply. Sex workers and their clients appeared to play an important role in the spread of STD. Prostitution is illegal in China, and therefore no specific services exist for sex workers unless they are arrested and detained in re-education centres. Staff of a maternal and neonatal hospital in Guangzhou felt the need for an STD care and prevention programme for sex workers outside detention, and started a programme within their hospital, which was unique in the Chinese context.

The present report provides the detailed findings of the baseline survey conducted among the bridge group (Client of Female Sex Workers) and one high-risk population group (Female Sex Workers) seeking their present status on awareness, knowledge, attitude and behaviour with regard to STD/HIV/AIDS.

Information from the third round of HIV surveillance in Bangladesh show that infection rates remain low, but it is now clear that this situation will not continue unless there is a radical reduction in risk behaviour.

This study was carried out among female sex workers in Kathmandu valley from March to August 2001 to determine the prevalence of HIV and syphilis and also to examine behavioral attitudes related to sexually transmitted disease.

This survey is the third round of the BSS conducted in the highway route of the FHI project area.

This report highlights findings from female sex workers and adult males from the first through the fifth waves of the BSS, conducted yearly in 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000.

The summary report gives the key findings and conclusions of the HIV/AIDS Behavioral Surveillance Survey (BSS) conducted between October 1999 and March 2001 in selected areas of Maharashtra.

Sections of the final report cover: Background Information, Sexual Behavior, STD and HIV/AIDS Knowledge, STD Health Seeking Behavior.

The set of case studies in this collection emerged from a session entitled Best Practices in Female Sex Worker Projects held at the Fourth International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific in Manila, October 1997.