CHICAGO: A study of Nepali women trafficked to India
and forced into the sex trade found that nearly 40 percent of them were
HIV positive by the time they were repatriated, US researchers said on
Tuesday.
The
findings come from a small study of 287 women who found their way home
after years of sex slavery in India's brothels, but they underscore the
challenge facing public health authorities as they battle to contain
India's HIV epidemic and prevent it from spreading throughout the region.
"The
high rates of HIV we have documented support concerns that sex
trafficking may be a significant factor in both maintaining the HIV
epidemic in India and in the expansion of this epidemic to its
lower-prevalence neighbors," said Jay Silverman, Associate Professor
of Society, Human Development, and Health at Harvard School of Public
Health.
India
has 2.5 million people living with HIV/AIDS, more than any other country
in the world except South Africa and Nigeria, and is also a major hub for
sex workers from across the region, such as Nepal and Bangladesh.
Nepal
has traditionally had very low rates of HIV/AIDS infection, but thousands
of Nepali women and girls are trafficked to the Indian subcontinent every
year where they wind up in the sex industry.
What's
more, one more recent study found that the number of infected sex workers
in Nepal increased 24-fold in the decade from 1992 to 2002, a trend that
experts say is probably reflected in the wider population.
While
World Bank officials have warned that the cross-border sex trade presents
a potential public health threat to Nepal, there has been very little
data to show what's happening on the ground.
The
authors of this study found that 38 percent of the returning women and
girls tested positive for the HIV virus, and that infection rates were
sharply higher among the youngest in the group.
Girls
aged 14 and under were four times more likely to be HIV-positive than the
women in the group as a whole. More than 60 percent had the virus that
can lead to AIDS - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
The
higher infection rates probably reflect the fact that the Indian men who
frequent brothels tend to prize younger girls, who are often presented as
virgins, because they perceive them as less likely to be infected with
HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases, the authors said.
The
widespread myth that having sex with a virgin will cure such illnesses
probably also factors into the equation, they added. Biologically, these
teens and pre-teens are also more vulnerable to suffering tears and
lesions during intercourse which also increases the risk of transmission.
Unfortunately,
as a result of their popularity, brothel owners tend to keep these
younger girls in captivity for longer - and the longer a girl is involved
in prostitution, the greater her risk for contracting HIV, the Harvard
researchers said.
More
broadly, the women who worked in several brothels, and specifically in
brothels in Mumbai, a city with a notable HIV/AIDS problem, were more
likely to be infected.
This
study did not track what happened to these women after they made it home,
but the fear is that these former sex workers may end up prostituting
again, and spreading the infection, because of the lack of support
services back home, and because they cannot go back to their families due
to the stigma around prostitution. "They are coming back to one of
the poorest countries in the world where they are particularly
ostracized," said Silverman. The study appears in the Journal of the
American Medical Association.
