Occupational health hazards in Prostitution
Many prostitutes who have been sexually assaulted suffer from psychological effects of rape and sexual abuse. These include rape trauma syndrome, post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), low self-esteem, guilt, and self-destructiveness.
Even in advanced countries, prostitutes often do not seek counseling for their problems because they are suspicious of outsiders and authorities, fear rejection, and fear change. A Canadian report on prostitution and pornography concluded that girls and women in prostitution have a mortality rate 40% higher than the national average.
Sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, drug usage, frequent abortions and suicide attempts are some of the greatest health risks for very young prostitutes. Truck drivers engaging in unprotected sexual intercourse with multiple partners in urban and rural areas along the highways of India are known to be a major vector of HIV infection and have passed on the infection to several prostitutes in the course of their sexual encounters.
Commercial sex workers in brothels in India live in extremely unhygienic conditions with very little food. Sometimes even a dozen girls are housed in a 10 x 10 room and medical check ups are far too rare. These girls are forced to work round the clock and are excused only when they are physically very weak. Given their menial position, they can never deny sexual services to those customers who refuse to use a condom.
Quacks and forced abortions
Brothel “madams” have regular quacks to treat CSWs who sometimes have to undergo dangerous and unhygenic methods of abortion.
Very young CSWs interviewed during a study said that the quacks injected a colored liquid in the infected areas as treatment for various sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis, scabies, venereal warts etc, never quite curing them and thereby extending their hold on them. Minor girls are never taken for treatment, as sex with a minor girl is a crime and the madams are scared of consequent criminal proceedings.
