Rights group says prostitutes are reluctant to carry condoms for fear of being arrested
Many prostitutes in Hong Kong are reluctant to practise safe sex by using condoms because police use them as evidence when making arrests, it was claimed yesterday.
The complaint came from Zi Teng, an organisation that aims to protect the rights of sex workers. It questioned 108 prostitutes from the mainland and found 52 per cent did not insist on clients using condoms.
The survey was carried out between January and September. The findings were released to draw public awareness to the health risk from cross-border sex.
Forty three per cent of respondents said they did not use condoms for fear they would be used by police as evidence in making arrests, and 37 per cent said they did not want to upset their clients by using condoms.
Mainland sex workers are usually arrested on the charge of breaching their conditions of stay, or soliciting for immoral purposes. Zi Teng spokeswoman Elaine Lam Yee-ling, said it was becoming a popular police tactic to arrest sex workers simply for carrying condoms.