DR Carol Jones (South China Morning Post, April 16), complains that compulsory testing of prostitutes would be ''one more means of controlling women''. Certainly, testing would, and should, be used as a means of control.
However, I cannot see how this could be seen as some kind of assault against women. On the contrary, it would be of benefit to the entire population of the territory.
I was recently assailed by a transvestite in Mongkok. He was staggering along the pavement and completely out of his skull. Do you think that to (attempt to) prevent a male junkie from working in the sex industry would constitute mistreatment of women? No, control of prostitution would be the control of a largely illegal industry, rife in Hongkong, which is doing nothing for the health and well-being of the general population.
Of course, Dr Jones is correct in saying that testing could not detect the most recently contracted cases of HIV, but those workers who did test positive for the virus could be a) offered counselling and medical help, and b) prevented from working in anylicensed establishment, thus curtailing at least some of the transmissions.
The question of control is not one which affects only prostitutes. It concerns society as a whole. An article printed in the Post of April 16, reports that 5.3 per cent of married men are willing to confess to ''high-risk behaviour''. Assuredly the true number of men who play away from home is far higher. While men are bringing AIDS home to their families, we have to confront the problem of prostitution and public health urgently. Any method of tracing carriers and preventing further transmissions must surely be welcomed.
Dr Jones goes on to suggest that were the Government to apply regulations and taxation within the sex industry, then it would be ''the state itself which exploits women''. There is regulation and taxation within all other industries in Hongkong; so why should a health worker pay tax but a sex worker not? A policeman, whose job it is to bust illegal brothels, must pay tax, the staff within do not. Is this fair? There is massive exploitation in the meat-market of this industry. It is usually in the form of loan-sharking, drug dealing and extortion. If government taxation is exploitation, is it not better than its triad administered alternative? Women become prostitutes for countless reasons, be they abuse, poverty, bad family backgrounds, or their lack of opportunity and self-respect in a society which continues to treat its women as second-class citizens.
