But prostitutes with inexpensive mobile phones are luring customers elsewhere, and that is endangering the astonishing progress India has made against AIDS. Indeed, the recent closings of hundreds of ancient brothels, while something of an economic victory for prostitutes, may one day cost them, and many others, their lives.
Cellphones, those tiny gateways to modernity, have recently allowed prostitutes to shed the shackles of brothel madams and strike out on their own. But that independence has made prostitutes far harder for government and safe-sex counselors to trace. And without the advice and free condoms those counselors provide, prostitutes and their customers are returning to dangerous ways.
Studies show that prostitutes who rely on cellphones are more susceptible to H. In interviews, prostitutes said they had surrendered some control in the bedroom in exchange for far more control over their incomes. Neelan is a professional name, not her real one. In , the C. Instead, India now has about 1. An important reason the disease never took extensive hold in India is that most women here have fewer sexual partners than in many other developing countries.
Just as important was an intensive effort underwritten by the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to target high-risk groups like prostitutes, gay men and intravenous drug users. But the Gates Foundation is now largely ending its oversight and support for AIDS prevention in India, just as efforts directed at prostitutes are becoming much more difficult. Experts say it is too early to identify how much H. A government survey found 2, prostitutes at Garstin Bastion also known as G.
Road who served about 8, men a day. The government estimated that if it could deliver as many as , free condoms each month and train dozens of prostitutes to counsel safe-sex practices to their peers, AIDS infections could be significantly reduced. Surprising many international AIDS experts, these and related tactics worked. Studies showed that condom use among clients of prostitutes soared. Peter Piot, the former executive director of U.
