The women paid by American customers were younger and more likely to speak English than their counterparts, and they were more apt to inject drugs and have unprotected sex, said Steffanie Strathdee, chief of the international health division at the University of California San Diego. She wrote the report, which appears in the current edition of the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
But these are highly vulnerable women. They are being bribed to have unprotected sex. The prostitutes with U. The economic incentive may explain why prostitutes with U. Strathdee worked with health officials and researchers in Mexico, Boston and Davis to survey prostitutes β in Tijuana and in Ciudad Juarez β between January and March Sixty-nine percent of the prostitutes said they had at least one American client.
Within that group, nearly 42 percent reported having a few American customers, and about 13 percent said most of their clients were American. The National Institute for Mental Health funded the research. The goal is to find effective ways to persuade prostitutes in five U.
Health experts had long assumed that STD infection rates in Mexican border towns were relatively low based on a few outdated surveys, Strathdee said. Her project found a significant increase in the number of prostitutes infected with HIV β 6 percent in , up from 2 percent 10 years ago. Of the prostitutes who catered to Americans, 8 percent tested positive for gonorrhea, 14 percent for chlamydia, 7 percent for HIV and 16 percent for syphilis. Sixteen percent of Mexican prostitutes who serviced U.
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