Exploring the Context of Trafficking & Adolescent Sex Industry Involvement in Tijuana, Mexico: Consequences for HIV Risk & Prevention

Coerced and adolescent sex industry involvement are linked to serious health and social consequences, including enhanced risk of HIV infection. Using ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews with 30 female sex workers with a history of coerced or adolescent sex industry involvement, we describe contextual factors influencing vulnerability to coerced and adolescent sex industry entry and their impacts on HIV risk and prevention. 

Early gender-based violence and economic vulnerability perpetuated vulnerability to coercion and adolescent sex exchange, while HIV risk mitigation capacities improved with increased age, control over working conditions, and experience. 

Structural interventions addressing gender-based violence, economic factors, and HIV prevention among all females who exchange sex are needed.

Via: http://ht.ly/S73TQ 

By: Goldenberg SM1, Silverman JG2, Engstrom D3, Bojorquez-Chapela I4, Usita P3, Rolón ML5, Strathdee SA2.

• 1University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada Gender and Sexual Health Initiative, British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada sgoldenberg@cfenet.ubc.ca.
• 2University of California, San Diego, USA.
• 3San Diego State University, CA, USA.
• 4El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Tijuana, Mexico.
• 5University of California, San Diego, USA Universidad Xochicalco, Tijuana, Mexico.