A human rights focused HIV intervention for sex workers in Metro Manila, Philippines: evaluation of effects in a quantitative pilot study
ObjectivesThis study evaluated a brief human rights focused HIV community mobilization intervention for sex workers in the Philippines, a country with one of the fastest rising number of HIV cases worldwide.MethodsFive single session group interventions to reduce sexual risk and increase HIV testing among 86 sex workers in Manila were evaluated with pre post test data via Wilcoxon's signed ranks and Mann Whitney tests. The 4 h intervention, Kapihan (August November, 2013) integrated human rights with HIV skill building. Demographic data, violence/trafficking victimization, human rights knowledge, and intentions to HIV test and treat were collected.ResultsParticipants were median aged 23; female (69 had children (55; 22 had 3+ children) used drugs (past 3 months: 16 sexually/physically abused by clients (66 20 street sex workers ever took an HIV test. Pre post test scores significantly improved in knowledge of HIV (z 8.895, p 0.001) reproductive health (z 3.850, p 0.001) human rights (z 4.391, p 0.001) ethical rights of research participants (z 5.081, p 0.001) and intentions to HIV test (z 4.868, p 0.001).ConclusionsIntegrating human rights into HIV interventions may empower sex workers to address their health and human rights and test for HIV.
International Journal of Public Health