Risky business of sex in the city

• Source: The Global Times
• [20:36 May 20 2009]
• Comments

A prostitute and her boyfriend at home near the Airport East Road. Photo: Zhao Tielin

Invisible

Xiao Xue is not alone. As depicted in Zhao’s book Invisible, 16-year-old “Ah V” (an alias) fled her home in poverty-stricken Guizhou Province with boyfriend Xiao Wu after her parents divorced and no one was willing to look after her.

Making a living became everything for her and her jobless boyfriend. She did as her boyfriend told her and became a prostitute.

“I could make 30 yuan a customer,” she reportedly said.

The most valuable thing this high school dropout owned, Zhao noted, was a torn electric fan, bought by her boyfriend for 10 yuan from a local trash collector.

As growing numbers of women like Xiao Xue and Ah V make their way through modern China as prostitutes, health workers are also growing concerned about the medical risk.

HIV/AIDS education and awareness of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) is poor in China: 60 percent of prostitutes don’t insist on condoms, says Wang Weizhen, deputy director of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment at the Ministry of Health in Beijing.

“I didn’t take a serious approach to condom use,” says Xiao.

“The trouble with condoms is that they are expensive and cause us trouble because we have to go to a pharmacy. Young Chinese women also feel embarrassed if they are too proactive about buying condoms.”

Condom use depends on a sex worker’s educational background and the place where they work, the founder and head of a volunteer team engaged in AIDS prevention among homosexual men tells the Global Times.

“For instance sex workers at … luxurious night clubs in Beijing, are generally fully aware of the risk of HIV/AIDS and STDs – and so are their clients,” says Xiao Dong.

Prostitutes serving migrant workers fare worse, he says.

“They are unlikely to take HIV/AIDS and STD prevention seriously.”

As chief of Chaoyang Chinese AIDS Volunteer Group, Xiao Dong has been campaigning to raise the awareness of sex workers towards HIV/AIDS.

It’s not just prostitutes. Customers lack HIV/AIDS awareness, he says. “Clients always believe that they can detect whether sex workers have contracted AIDS or STDs.

“They think sex workers with AIDS or STDs will have a rotten body or their body will discharge pus.”