HIV/AIDS

Sex workers and clients

Sex workers are a highly vulnerable group to HIV/AIDS and in many countries face victimisation, invisibility and lack of empowerment to insist on clients using condoms. Some National Societies have sought to engage the sex worker sector in the following ways:

American Red Cross
Female and male sex industry workers and their customers in Wyoming have been targeted through an HIV prevention project run by the American Red Cross. For about eight years, American Red Cross HIV/AIDS outreach workers have hit city streets in an agency van to educate high-risk populations on disease prevention.

On average, the Red Cross intervention program reaches 2,000 to 3,000 people per month. The local police department supports the program and sometimes provides additional patrols in the van's proximity for the safety of Red Cross workers. Police do not target individuals who stop at the van.

Australian Red Cross projects in Laos
The lack of accurate HIV surveillance information in Laos has been a long-term problem. Official data from UNAIDS indicates very low prevalence in the country, though the analysis highlights that prevalence is starting to rise sharply among groups that are particularly vulnerable to HIV like sex workers and migrant labourers.

Laos was the location of the first HIV project implemented by Australian Red Cross in 1994. The project expanded through four phases, funded principally by the Australian government's overseas aid program (AusAID). Implementation was increasingly handed over to Lao Red Cross. By 2003, the project had expanded to include support for HIV-positive people, particularly in the provinces of Savannakhet and Bokeo. With additional funding from Norwegian Red Cross, the Lao Red Cross project became the largest HIV response in Laos, covering 12 of the country's 17 provinces.

Two-day peer education village workshops have been a core activity. They focus on prevention for young people, mainly in locations where people are more likely to be exposed to HIV. In the last phase of the program, approximately 16,000 young people were provided with HIV and peer education training in more than 800 village-level workshops. There was also a significant focus on enhancing the quality of these interventions, through evaluations responding to specific gender issues. Follow-up visits occurred in approximately 30 per cent of villages.

Publications

www.redcross.org.au