Sex work in Asia
Six to 8 million. That’s the estimated number of female sex workers in China alone, according to Joseph Tucker, instructor in medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School (HMS). And that’s not taking into account male sex workers, called “money boys” in China, or similar workers in other Asian countries. Those 8 million-plus people were the subject of last Friday’s (Oct. 1) conference called “Sex Work in Asia,” hosted by the Harvard University Asia Center and HMS. Tucker, who organized the conference, described it as a meeting of “scholars and activists, professors, public health officials, and lawyers,” tackling a “compelling social issue in an interesting part of the world.” “We want to have an interdisciplinary dialogue,” he said. Tucker cited unsafe sex as the second-most-common cause of morbidity and mortality in the world. In many parts of Asia, there is an increasing epidemic of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV. The goal...