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State Control, Female Prostitution and HIV Prevention in China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2011

Susanne Y.P. Choi
Susanne Y.P. Choi
Affiliation:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

By combining analysis of archival documents and data from 245 sex workers interviewed in south-west China between 2003 and 2007, this article argues that the AIDS crisis has prompted a shift in state discourse about prostitution in China from a victim to a victimizer perspective. Concomitant with this discursive shift is the gradual intensification of control over prostitution. Our data show that the victim perspective overlooks the fact that sex workers are agents who actively negotiate their work and lives amid limited options in post-socialist China. The victimizer perspective, on the other hand, misplaces the blame of unsafe sex practices on sex workers, while in reality it is their clients who refuse to use condoms. The data further suggest that repressive measures against prostitution premised on this victim–victimizer dichotomy inhibit the ability of sex workers to negotiate safe sex practices and aggravate their exposure to HIV risk. The repressive measures undermine the supportive professional networks of sex workers, increase economic pressure on the workers and increase their exposure to client-perpetrated violence.

Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 205 , March 2011 , pp. 96 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2011

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