Sex Workers Confront HIV

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Duration: 8 minutes and 21 seconds

Country: United States

Language: English

License: dotSUB Non-Commercial

Genre: Documentary

Producer: Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in association with Azimuth Media

Director: Antigone Barton and Stephen Sapienza

Posted by: pulitzercenter on May 28, 2008

The HIV rates among sex workers in the Dominican Republic run three to 10 times higher than in the general population. Now some women in the region are uniting to take a stand against the virus. Reporter Antigone Barton and videographer Stephen Sapienza explore how sex workers are striving to educate others in the business on the dangers of the virus and the importance of using protection. To learn more, visit http://pulitzercenter.org/showproject.cfm?id=51

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At least 70,000 of the Dominican Republic's 9 million people are HIV positive.
Female sex workers here are reported to number as many as 130,000.
The HIV rates among sex workers here runs three to 10 times higher than in the general population.
Some 80% of sex workers work in bars, discos, and brothels, and 20% work the streets, tourist beaches, and ports.
[Juliana] Of all towns, it has the fourth most sex workers.
I don't have a real estimate of the number of sex workers in Haina
there must be at least a thousand sex workers here
Because La Haina is a town with income,
we have a port where tourist ships dock
there's a manufacturing area, a lot of industry
...and where there's money, there's sex work.
Well, in this country it is very difficult for a woman to get a job.
The only options available are being a housekeeper,
working in a factory...
or live with a man, cook and clean for him,
[Jocelyn] I've been doing this for 10 years.
I gave birth to my child, Rosy, the one who's 11,
When I saw I had nothing, she had no milk, her dad left and abandoned me,
a friend of mine said 'Come with me to the port.'
When I went, a Honduran sailor fell for me and gave me $100.
Here we have a port, where ships and sailors come through,
that's who we work with.
Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't.
I'm tired of doing this work, I want to leave this life.
Because I don't want to keep doing this anymore.
It's not something you choose to do, but out of necessity.
In my two bedroom house live seven people.
My three kids, my sister and her child, and my niece.
Around here there is a lot of crime, a lot of drugs.
My kids are here, but I want to move.
My children can't grow up in this environment.
I'm not doing sex work now. I work on behalf of sex work.
I started MODEMU 14 years ago.
People were saying all sex workers infected people with HIV.
So we got together seeing the problems that the woman had,
we came up with the idea to form a united women's movement.
And we went to the streets, to work with our fellow sex workers.
Sex workers working with sex workers. It was the same language.
[Dr. Ellen Koenig] MUDEMO does get money on certain programs. They apply for grants,
and USAID has not helped very much,
because the American government doesn't want to work with sex workers.
But there are others, the European community, the Canadian equivalent of AID,
other groups, will fund studies or work for them.
So, in that way they have gotten money
to finance some of their programs that they have underway.
Can I get a ride?
I'm a member of MONEMU, so I go give speeches to girls in the business.
I go out three days a week ...
to talk to girls about HIV/AIDS prevention.
When we went to Semana Santa, I went to the El Sifon Bar
to teach girls the correct use of the condoms.
There are many men who don't like to use a condom.
Many will offer you $100 to have sex without a condom.
We say no.
No condom, no sex.
A female sex worker cannot protect herself,
unless the man wants to protect himself.
There is a female condom
but its very uncomfortable and it's about five or 10 times more expensive than the male condom.
So the woman is really at a disadvantage in this game.
And they realize that this disease they have to work to help solve.
There was a test for a (HIV) vaccine for sex workers.
Because it targeted high-risk people, they called MODEMU
to provide sex workers.
So Ellen called MODEMU,
MODEMU sent six representatives.
I was one of them. I was also part of the study.
In the Dominican Republic,
our first studies showed that the highest levels in
men who have sex with men, and the Haitians.
And this probably continues on today.
And so when we were picking people,
the idea that the Haitians might be good,
but then they're doing vaccine trials in Haiti.
The men who have sex with men I believe they can find easily
in places like the United States,
and these men in the United States are very dedicated to helping this,
and they felt that the female prostitute here would probably be a good candidate
and when they saw the number who had other sexually transmitted diseases,
they figured that this was a very susceptible population
and one that would be adequate and might give us some good results,
as far as the HIV vaccine goes.
The vaccine - it's a trial for the vaccine,
but it's the most promising so far.
But if the vaccine turns out to work, it won't be for our benefit.
We are taking a chance for the sake of science, for our grandchildren,
for future generations.
These women are the real heroines of the AIDS epidemic
because they are giving their body, and their time,
to help us try to solve this problem.
Produced by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Azimuth Media.
Reported by Antigone Barton and Stephen Sapienza
Videography by Stephen Sapienza
Translators: Ana Valdes, Daphne Duret, Danielle Barav
Additional footage provided by Pan American Health Organization, United Nations Films & Video Library.
Funding provided by MAC AIDS Fund.
For related articles, videos, and photographs, visit: www.palmbeachpost.com/heroes

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