Project title: Capacity building for VINAFPA in HIV/AIDS prevention among sex workers in Vietnam

Implementing body: Vietnamese Family Planning Association (VINAFPA)

Aim: To improve awareness among policy-makers, to build service provision capacity, to develop a model of peer education and HIV/AIDS prevention and care

Although sharing unclean needles during injecting drug use used to be the main source for the spread of HIV/AIDS in Vietnam, the epidemic has escalated rapidly.

And it has also – as with all concentrated epidemics – shifted to other groups vulnerable to infection. The spotlight is now on the sex industry – sex workers, their clients and their stable partners.

Working in conjunction with the regional IPPF, the Vietnamese Family Planning Association (VINAFPA) managed a process of educating policy-makers on the need to develop a sensitive approach appropriate to the sex industry.

The project was an important step in promoting the sexual health and rights of sex workers, particularly women, and in building a better understanding of the link between the sex industry and the spread of HIV/AIDS in the broader community.

The health needs of sex workers are substantial, but the challenge remains to try and meet these needs in a society where sex work is a stigmatized and an illegal profession.

Targeting sex workers at selected urban sites, the VINAFPA set out:

• to increase awareness of HIV/AIDS prevention in the sex industry
• to heighten awareness of the issues at stake among policy-makers
• to reduce the prevalence of STI/HIV/AIDS among sex workers
• to improve peer support among sex workers operating from hotels, restaurants and other public venues in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang
• to build capacity for VINAFPA key staff working with the sex industry through skills development and practical experience