La Strada Documentation Center

Sex Work and Infection: What’s Law Enforcement Got to Do with it?

Document number
2100
Date
2007
Title
Sex Work and Infection: What’s Law Enforcement Got to Do with it?
Author/publisher
Paul Gertler, Manisha Shah
Availability
View/save PDF version of this document
Document type(s)
Research/Study/Analysis,
Keywords
Sex tourism, Pornography, Domestic violence, Prostitution, Rape, Sexual harassment, Women's rights; Women; Control and regulation of prostitution, Protection, Punishable forms of prostitution,
Summary
Several countries are pursuing the regulation of commercial sex work in order to decrease the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and reduce the probability of a generalize HIV/AIDS epidemic. In many Latin American countries, the commercial sex market is composed of two sectors, brothel and street, where the latter is characterized by riskier behavior (e.g., lower rates of condom use) and higher prevalence of STIs. This paper studies the public health effects of enforcing licensing requirements in a two-sector commercial sex market, where enforcement varies between sectors. Specifically, we use nationally representative data from Ecuador to examine the effects of enforcement in brothels vs. enforcement in the street on STI prevalence, exploiting regional variation in the frequency of police visits. The findings indicate that increasing enforcement in the street sector significantly decreases STIs by 8 percent, yet enforcement in the brothel sector has no effect on disease outcomes. This paper proposes a theoretical model that explains this divergence as a consequence of both a price effect and a sectoral choice effect.
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