of police misconduct reported by sex workers. Of 299 respondents, 31 sex workers reported being subject to police beatings, 16 reported electrical shocks, 4 reported rape and 22 reported blackmail. Pirkle et al note that some sex workers live under conditions of dependence: “They turn all their earnings over to the manager who provides them with daily necessities in return.”306 Women in these circumstances have very limited decision making power and are highly vulnerable to HIV, with condom availability and use determined primarily by clients or managers of sex workers (pimps, establishment owners, etc.). Fear of police crackdowns and arrest may lead to increased mobility of sex workers, thereby expanding sexual networks and potentially discouraging sex workers from accessing testing and treatment services. This problem is exacerbated because many sex workers belong to floating populations of migrants from rural areas who are already susceptible to police abuses.307 As informal internal migrants, most are unable to register for government entitlements under China’s hukou system (household registration system).308 Choi identifies a gradual intensification of state control over sex workers.309 She argues that repressive measures undermine the supportive professional networks of sex workers, increase economic pressure on sex workers and increase their exposure to clientperpetrated violence. These consequences weaken the ability of sex workers to negotiate condom use with clients: Information about effective means of STI and HIV prevention, proper ways of applying condoms, strategies to prevent condom failure (slippage and breakage during intercourse) and methods to screen out potentially violent clients or clients who refuse to use condoms is circulated through these (informal) networks (of sex workers)...The formation of these networks, however, has been hampered by frequent police raids and arrests. After release, arrested sex workers may not return to “Many women incur the same venue for fear of becoming the target of further debts from owners police action again. The fear of police raids and arrests is part and managers of the of the reasons that sex workers change work venues and establishments where locations frequently, thus greatly reducing the stability and they work because they strength of their networks…The rapid turnover of women need to borrow money undermines the HIV prevention work of health personnel and to pay for police fines...” outreach workers. For it creates great difficulties for outreach workers to build up a more stable and trusting relationship with women… Police raids and arrests also increase the economic pressure of sex workers, in particular drug-using sex workers and streetwalkers…In a climate where competition for clients is already intense because of the continuous supply of women from rural areas, police raids scare potential clients away, seriously interrupt the livelihood of women, and put these women in an even more powerless position in negotiating safe sex with customers... 306 Pirkle C., Soundardjee R., Stella A. (2007) Female Sex Workers in China: Vectors of Disease? Sexually Transmitted Diseases 34 (9), 695–703, p.699. 307 Ibid, p.696; Tucker J., Henderson G., Wang T., et al. (2005) Surplus men, sex work, and the spread of HIV in China. AIDS 19, 539–547. 308 Pirkle C., Soundardjee R., Stella A., (2007), op cit.; Zheng T. (2010) op cit., p.41 309 Choi S., (2011) State control, female prostitution and HIV prevention in China, China Quarterly 205: 96114.
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