BajaNews
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Health officials begin regulating Tijuana sex workers
http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid23406.asp
December 15, 2005
Health officials in Tijuana, Mexico, during the past few months have begun enforcing a new law that regulates sex workers in the city and requires
them to be screened monthly for sexually transmitted diseases, The New York Times reports. The law applies to both female and male sex workers in
Tijuana, which has thousands of prostitutes who cater to both heterosexual and gay male clients. So far, health officials say, the new program has
turned up only a handful of STD cases among thousands of tests conducted.
Under the new law, registered sex workers are issued photo IDs with magnetic strips that can be checked with a handheld scanner to prove that they?ve
received negative results on tests for several STDs?including HIV?within the past month. Sex workers who have not been tested or received positive
test results are prohibited from working and can be arrested if they attempt to engage in prostitution.
About 5,000 sex workers are screened each month, say health officials, but more than 8,000 prostitutes who originally registered with the city in the
summer have stopped seeking monthly testing, say health officials. Authorities aren't sure how many of these men and women simply ceased coming in for
their monthly tests, which they must pay for themselves, or stopped working in the sex trade.
So far, the testing program has identified three cases of HIV and fewer than five cases each of syphilis and gonorrhea.
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BajaNews
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Posts: 1439
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Oldest profession cleaned up
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/caribbean/sfl-hmexpro...
By James C. McKinley Jr.
December 27, 2005
TIJUANA ? She arrived at the clinic at noon, dark sunglasses covering her eyes and a baseball cap pulled down low. She clutched a small pink book with
her picture stapled inside. The dates of her examinations for venereal diseases were stamped in inks of various colors, like a passport.
Her name is Olga, and like thousands of other women in this town, she works as a prostitute, recruiting clients at a bar.
These days, however, unless she is tested every month at a government clinic and has the right stamps in her booklet, the police will arrest her.
"You cannot work without it," she said, running her finger down the list of dates and notations saying HIV NEGATIVO. "If you don't have it, the police
will take you away and you have to pay a fine."
The testing is one of the measures this city has taken to regulate prostitution, which has flourished in this city for decades.
The city council passed a law in June that requires the town's prostitutes -- 5,000 are currently being tested each month -- to have monthly medical
exams for sexually transmitted diseases and forces brothel owners to adopt more sanitary practices. Those who do not comply face costly fines and the
loss of their business licenses.
The city has also begun issuing new credentials to prostitutes to replace the old pink booklets.
The new license looks like a credit card with a photo. A magnetic strip on the back allows health inspectors with hand-held scanners to check the
cardholder's medical status in seconds.
"If a person is infected at the time when they read the credential, there will appear a red light that says she cannot work," said Dr. Manuel Mayor
Noriega, who runs the city health clinic for prostitutes.
Though there are still laws against prostitution, the sex trade has long been part of downtown Tijuana, a city that bloomed during Prohibition around
bars, casinos, brothels and racetracks.
Women loiter at all hours in front of bars and hotels along the streets in La Coahuila, the red-light district in the northern part of the city,
beckoning men who have crossed the nearby border.
Martha Montejano, a city councilwoman who pushed through the law at the behest of Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon, said the city has legalized the sex trade for
all intents and purposes in hopes of stopping the spread of disease. "It would be impossible to get rid of or to avoid prostitution," she said. "This
initiative protects the clients as well as the women."
One measure of the magnitude of the problem health officials face is that more than 8,000 women and men who have registered as prostitutes since the
system began have stopped coming to the city clinic, Noriega said.
It is unclear how many left the business and how many simply decided not to pay for the tests anymore.
Noriega said the incidence of AIDS in women registered with the city clinic is very low, with only three cases detected so far this year. All were
women who had arrived from other cities and were seeking a credential to work. The incidence of syphilis and gonorrhea similarly is small, fewer than
five cases of each discovered this year, he said.
Streetwalkers are as much a part of Tijuana as the wandering mariachis, who also linger on corners looking for clients. The hotels where the women
take clients share streets with shops selling souvenirs, ponchos, leather goods, switchblade knives and cheap guitars, with old-time cantinas where
men in cowboy hats drink tequila and beer to the strains of ranchera music, with barber shops where one can still get a straight-razor shave for a
dollar, and with drug stores that sell all sorts of medicines to people without prescriptions at low prices.
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