Making Prostitution
Safer?
After reading and listening to last
week’s case study about the 100% Condom Program in Thailand sex workers, I
began to think about an article I read recently in the news. Prostitution is
legal in Switzerland and has been since 1942; however, it was not until
recently that the city officials in Zurich, Switzerland have taken action in an
attempt to make prostitution safer. The
city has now forbidden women to solicit in the streets and expects them to use
newly constructed facilities known as “sex boxes”.
Zurich’s hope is that these sex
boxes will make prostitution not only safer for the women but also for their
clients. The facility is located in the suburbs of Zurich and is surrounded by
security gates manned by guards. Men (clients) will be able to drive around in
their cars, select a woman and continue business in that woman’s designated
drive-in sex box. In each box there is an alarm button and an emergency escape,
as well as safe sex reminders (such as condom use to prevent STIs and HIV).
Also onsite are social workers, full bathrooms and a kitchen for the women to
use and get assistance if necessary. Regulations also require all prostitutes
to buy a daily sex workers license and have health insurance. The project was
paid for using tax dollars and was approved by citizens who wanted the
prostitution off their streets and out of the main city.
Although the main goal of this
initiative is not HIV/AIDS prevention, I can’t help but wonder if it will not
only successfully make prostitution safer but also lower rates of STIs and
HIV/AIDS? This may be hard to determine, since Switzerland already has a low
prevalence rate (0.4%) of HIV/AIDS. However statistics show that men ages 15-24
and women ages 20-24 have the highest risk for sexual transmission, so perhaps
if this is the population predominantly using the sex boxes, it very well could
lower the incidence of HIV/AIDS in these age groups.
I realize a program similar to this
is not feasible for many other countries, especially if prostitution was not
legal and the citizens were not willing to have their tax dollars pay for such
a program. However, I think it will be interesting to see the outcomes of this
project in Zurich and to look for anything that can be learned and applied
elsewhere.
I drew comparisons between the case
study from last week and this article for several reasons. First both countries
are trying to make prostitution safer, although it is legal in Switzerland and
not in Thailand; both initiatives addressed a marginalized group of people (prostitutes). Second,
although the initiatives had different objectives, the overarching goal was to
make prostitution safer for both the women and their clients (and therefore the
general population). Thailand was successful and the verdict is still out for
Switzerland. Is it time that other countries began to address issues that are
typically overlooked and frowned upon in order to improve the health of many?
Switzerland did it in the past by battling drug addiction and unsafe usage in
the streets with needle exchanges, injection rooms and even prescriptions for
the drugs with success. If Switzerland and Thailand can do it, can other
countries?
References:
Nice Blog Lindsey. Now, can we find some scholarly references on both campaigns? Have they been evaluated, specially the Switzerland one. I have problems there as their approach is totally located in a Power/ Control/ Quarantine Framework. Read Foucault and see how this is so problematic. It serves to dis-empower and further exploit the already marginalized population. It seems quite amusing at one level and quite a serious problem at another when I see public health officials think that they can contain a social disease by building a walled compound with surveillance with people's tax money. Wow!! such ignorance...Really can we deconstruct that "citizen's approval"? And if prostitution is legal, what is the meaning of "concerned" citizens wanting prostitution off their streets? Is it not a contradiction there? more of an irony...so there is stigma and discrimination in the swedish society...And if this is true, the strategy is faulty. it privileges some and disempowers/ exploits the other!!
ReplyDeleteI am doing some research to find out whether the campaigns have been successful or not, however, I just wanted to expose my bias to everyone. How can a nation legalize prostitution? Does the means justify the end or the end justify the means? As health worker professionals, do we have a creed (may be not the right word) like the nurses and doctors who take an oath to "do no harm?"
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post concerning sex boxes. At first, these new facilities sounded very similar to brothels. However, after doing some research, I found some interesting information on brothels and a project concerned with preventing HIV transmission in brothels. The project reviewed campaigns in various countries concerned with this health issue. According to "The Synergy Project," there is no universal definition of a brothel. The project defines a brothel as a commercial sex establishment, where managers or owners earn a fee from sexual interaction on the premises. I would assume Switzerland is not labeling these sex boxes as brothels because there is no middleman taking the money. The project concludes the most effective interventions reduce transmission through diagnosing risk causation on 4 levels- societal, institutional, community and individual.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.who.int/hiv/topics/vct/sw_toolkit/Preventing_HIV_AIDS_in_Brothels_Synergy.pdf