Prostitution in India - Sex Worker Health

Sex Worker Health

Mumbai and Kolkata (Calcutta) have the country's largest brothel based sex industry, with over 100,000 sex workers in Mumbai. It is estimated that more than 50% of the sex workers in Mumbai have HIV. In Surat, a study discovered that HIV prevalence among sex workers had increased from 17% in 1992 to 43% in 2000.

A positive outcome of a prevention program among prostitutes can be found in Sonagachi, a red-light district in Kolkata. The education program targeted about 5,000 female prostitutes. A team of two peer workers carried out outreach activities including education, condom promotion and follow-up of STI cases. When the project was launched in 1992, 27% of sex workers reported condom use. By 1995 this had risen to 82%, and in 2001 it was 86%.

Reaching women who are working in brothels has proven to be quite difficult due to the sheltered and secluded nature of the work, where pimps, Mashis, and brothel-keepers often control access to the women and prevent their access to education, resulting in a low to modest literacy rate for many sex workers.

Consistently high HIV infection rates among sex workers (50% or more among Mumbai's female sex worker population since 1993), coupled with lack of information, failure to use protection, and the migrancy of their clients, may contribute to the spread of AIDS in the region and the country.