Title: Sex workers, HIV and AIDS | Avert
Headings: Global information and education on HIV and AIDS
Global information and education on HIV and AIDS
Sex workers, HIV and AIDS
KEY POINTS:
Why are sex workers at particular risk of HIV transmission?
Social and legal factors
Multiple partners and inconsistent condom use
Injecting drug use
Migration, mobility and sex work
The relationship between human trafficking and sex work
HIV and young people who sell sex
Preventing HIV among sex workers
Successful HIV prevention programmes for sex workers
Encouraging condom use
PrEP
HIV counselling and testing (HTC) services for sex workers
Access to antiretroviral treatment (ART) for sex workers
Law enforcement practices, human rights and legal education
Addressing stigma and discrimination
HELP US HELP OTHERS
Barriers to accessing HIV prevention services
Sex workers and human rights
Removing barriers to HIV prevention for sex workers
Involving sex workers
Should sex work be legalised?
The way forward
Photo credit: iStock/TerryJ
Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Content: 27 For example, an estimated 62% of women in Kyrgyzstan and 84% of women in Azerbaijan who inject drugs also engage in sex work. 28
Migration, mobility and sex work
Migration and sex work are often linked as some migrants may turn to sex work if they cannot find an alternative means of making money. Migrant sex workers often become the targets of both police and immigration officers, especially those who cross borders (both legally and illegally) and do not have immigration status. Other than facing the criminalisation of sex work, they may also face surveillance, racial profiling, arrest, detention, deportation and other restrictions on mobility imposed by criminal, immigration and trafficking laws. 29
As well as selling sex themselves, migrants may become the clients of sex workers as a means of escaping the solitude that often accompanies migration. 30 Another way in which HIV, sex work and mobility are linked is through ‘sex tourism’, whereby clients travel between countries seeking paid sex. Sex tourism is fuelling the demand for sex workers in many countries, particularly in Asia and the Caribbean. In some cases, men travel to another country in order to take advantage of lenient age of consent laws, or because they know that it will be easy to find paid sex. 31 32
The relationship between human trafficking and sex work
Human trafficking is defined as: The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by me