Christine's Story from Burma highlights the action agenda paper in the new HIV and sex workers series in the Lancet.

You can download articles from the series at https://tinyurl.com/ok3fmg6

There are a lot of good papers here.

Jamie

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“I started selling sex when I was 18. When I was 15 or 16, I started taking [a form of]
cough syrup as a drug. My friends were doing drugs, and then I got a boyfriend who also
used drugs so we started doing it together. Then we broke up and I started trading sex for
drugs.
In 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit my country. During the cyclone, my father passed away. After
his death, I had to look after my family. Before the cyclone, I was not forced to sell sex; I
could choose when and with whom, and I could say no. But after the cyclone, I had to go
with any client that came. Some clients were good and some were bad. But I wanted to
give my little sister and brothers an education, and my grandmother needed an eye
operation.
To deal with the stress, I started taking more cough syrup. At fi rst I didn’t take a lot, but
then I started using it to get high and ease the pain. The drugs made me feel inner peace
and also allowed me to do more work since I didn’t need to sleep. It was a circle of doing
drugs, and needing money for drugs and my siblings’ education.
I had some health problems in the beginning, like excessive discharge, pain, and bruising.
My fellow sex workers and I helped each other to heal our health issues. You need to have
a group where you can discuss issues and solve problems together; you can discuss your
feelings like if you are happy or sad. I had an implant for birth control in case a condom
broke, but I also used condoms and every 3 months went for an HIV test.
I never wanted problems with the police, so whenever they wanted to have sex, I gave it
to them for free. They didn’t care if I was tired or didn’t want to—they just told me they
want it. Also, the police made us pay for their food in tea houses. If I went to do sex work
in a diff erent area of my city, I had to make a deal with the police chief of that area.
Sometimes I had to give them money for alcohol.
Through having saved money, I fi nally managed to support education for my two
younger brothers and my sister, and I was able to pay for my grandmother’s eye
operation. I also got a job in an international non-governmental organisation, and they
helped me to stop my [drug] addiction through keeping me busy with work but also
providing me information about drug use. Having the job with the NGO made my
grandmother so proud of me—she cried when I told her the news.
I still do sex work sometimes when I travel because my job doesn’t pay me enough to
support my family. My salary is only 100 dollars a month. But I feel proud at what I’ve
achieved.
I want to keep working on human rights issues, and also support other young people
like me"

http://download.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140673614609338.pdf?id=gaaG_z4PqnvkuaDkAKBDu