Globalisation, wide income disparities, popularity of adult entertainment and ease of travel have led to an influx of women from countries in Asia such as Thailand, Vietnam, China, Philippines and Indonesia to work in EEs worldwide. In recent years, sex work has increasingly shifted from brothels to EEs in Asia. As FEWs often face difficulties in accessing preventive or healthcare services, they are vulnerable to HIV/STIs. The prevalence of HIV/STI was higher among FEWs than brothel-based FSWs in a systematic review. Compared to brothels with 100% condom use programme, there is a lack of access to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/ sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention programmes in the EE setting. They are distrustful of outsiders and will engage in all means to avoid the revelation of their identities. Due to stigmatisation, discrimination and fear of prosecution, FEWs are a hard-to-reach, ill-defined and mobile population. Indirect sex work is illegal in many countries. Female entertainment workers (FEWs) working in EEs are often indirect sex workers who sell sex in the EEs to supplement their income. EEs are karaoke lounges, bars, pubs, nightclubs and discotheques providing entertainment activities such as singing, dancing and social drinking. Registered (retrospectively registered).įemale sex workers (FSWs) are a diverse population operating in different settings such as brothels, streets, online sex forums and entertainment establishments (EEs). The qualitative inquiry approaches to gain access, to foster participation and to develop a culturally appropriate intervention, along with the census enumeration technique application to estimate the FEW population sizes has led to successful intervention implementation as well as safer sexual behaviour and STI incidence reduction. The interventions group reported a significant increase in consistent condom use with a reduction in STI incidence compared to no significant change in the comparison group. These strategies were effective as we achieved a participation rate of 90.3%, a follow-up rate of 70.5% for the comparison and 66.8% for the intervention group.
Fews into red review trial#
To foster their participation, we used culturally-responsive recruitment strategies, and ensured that the trial was anonymous and acceptable to the FEWs. To develop the intervention, we involved FEWs and peer educators, and ensured that the intervention was non-stigmatising and met their needs. They faced difficulties in accessing health services due to fear of identity exposure, stigmatisation, cost and language differences. Their reasons for non-condom use included misconceptions on the transmission and consequences of STI/HIV, low risk perception of contracting HIV/STI from paid/casual partner, lack of skills to negotiate or to persuade partner to use condom, unavailability of condoms in entertainment establishments and fear of the police using condom as circumstantial evidence. We estimated 376 Vietnamese and 330 Thai FEWs in 2 geographical sites where they operated in Singapore. The findings were used to inform intervention development and implementation. We estimated the size of FEW population using the census enumeration technique. In-depth interviews, observations, informal conversational interviews, mystery client and critical incident technique were used.
We also highlighted how qualitative inquiry, census enumeration technique and community-based engagement approaches were used to gain access and to develop a culturally appropriate STI prevention intervention. This paper described the needs assessment phase before intervention implementation where the socio-organisation, sexual risk behaviours and access to health services of foreign FEWs in Singapore were explored. There is an increasing global movement of foreign female entertainment workers (FEWs), a hard-to-reach population vulnerable to HIV/STIs.
0 kommentar(er)
