With Sri Lanka seeing a 14% increase in new HIV cases in 2023, questions are being aimed at sex workers operating from ‘spas’. However, health officials maintain that they cannot point fingers at any particular industry for the rise in HIV cases.
According to the National STD/AIDS Control Programme (NSACP), in 2023, a total of 694 new cases of HIV were reported – a 14% increase from the numbers in 2022.
At the end of March, a news media report said that the Negombo Police had made 120 arrests in connection with sex work after raiding 54 spas operating in the area. Following medical tests, the report further claimed that two of the persons who had been arrested had tested positive for HIV and in the days that followed, increased media attention was directed towards HIV and sex work.
However, NSACP Consultant Venereologist Dr. Vino Dharmakulasinghe said that they were “not labelling any workers at any point” for the increase in new cases that were reported in 2023.
“We estimate that there are about 4,100 people living with HIV in Sri Lanka and last year, we identified 694 new patients. That is a 14% increase from 2022. We observed that anyone who is within the reproductive age of 16-49 years and is sexually active can get HIV. We can’t label any workers or professionals for this,” she told The Sunday Morning.
Instead, Dr. Dharmakulasinghe said that people were in general uneducated on and unaware about Sexually-Transmitted Diseases (STDs), HIV, and protection methods when being sexually active.
“People are very uneducated on the use of condoms. One of the best methods to reduce this risk is to use condoms and to increase their use,” she said, adding that through the ‘Know4Sure’ app, anyone was able to get condoms, lubricants, and tests delivered to their homes free of charge.
“People who become positive have been unaware of these services; that is what we are observing. Other than that, we cannot label any workers or professionals,” she reiterated.
“People living with HIV also get treatment from us, through our 40 clinics islandwide. Any person from any industry can get their tests done through us and for any reason, if a test is positive, we will provide treatment,” said Dr. Dharmakulasinghe.
Public needs to be educated
Meanwhile, Health Promotion Bureau (HPB) Director Dr. Ranjith Batuwanthudawe, speaking to The Sunday Morning, said that the general public needed to be educated on safe sex before they engaged in penetrative sex for the first time.
“We have to educate the general public about incorrect sexual practices before they set in. Ideally, they should become aware of condom usage before the first instance of penetrative sex. After they become a vulnerable group like, for example, those who get services from sex workers, there isn’t a point in educating them. They should be educated before they start risky behaviour and the general public should be as well – this education should not be limited to just target groups.”
NSACP Director Dr. Janaki Vidanapathirana told The Sunday Morning that the new cases had mostly been identified in males between the ages of 20 and 30 years.
Situation in Negombo
Neeta (name changed), a sex worker who had been arrested during the recent raids of spas in Negombo, told The Sunday Morning that the raids had occurred throughout the month of March.
“There were raids throughout March in Negombo. During some of these raids, even spas that were closed were raided and workers arrested when they were not working. In one spa I know, two workers were just sleeping and resting and they were also arrested. The court then directed all of us to medical tests.”
Explaining the health regulations that sex workers follow of their own accord, Neeta said: “We go for medical tests by ourselves every month anyway. Spa owners usually require monthly medical checkups and send us to the clinics.
“When we first entered the industry years ago, we were unaware of protection and prevention methods. But now, through training and education programmes, we have learnt about the strict use of condoms. Those days we used condoms according to the customer – with some we used and with others we did not. The situation is different now – many sex workers now impose the condition that they will not provide services if the customer doesn’t use a condom. This is the case for oral sex too.”
She said that while health regulations differed from spa to spa, cleanliness was usually maintained as a general rule.
She claimed that she had been arrested with about 20 other women who had all been kept in one jail cell while three of them who were menstruating at the time of the arrests had not even been allowed to take their sanitary napkins with them.
Neeta further alleged that spa owners in Negombo usually paid two sets of bribes worth Rs. 50,000 each to two Police stations in the area in order to ensure that they were not raided. “The officers who take the bribes don’t come for the raids. They send other officers.”
“When drug traffickers are arrested, even they are given dignity and their faces are covered. But in this case, the media, with their cameras, were brought into rooms where the sex workers were working. Can the media do that?” she questioned, adding that although about one raid occurred in the Negombo area every month, last month many raids had occurred with increased media attention and sex workers were imprisoned for a longer period of time.
“Some of the workers who were arrested have small children and can’t afford to stay in jail for a longer period of time. When we spend a month in jail, how can we work and earn?”
Neeta alleged that often, a male Police officer in plain clothes would come as a decoy first to receive services from a sex worker and once the worker finished her service, the decoy would call the other officers to come in for a raid. “Women Police officers rarely come in for raids so we are arrested half-clothed by male Police officers,” she alleged.
Meanwhile, Stand Up Movement Lanka Executive Director Ashila Dandeniya said they were uncertain whether the recent raids in Negombo had happened in isolation of other sociocultural factors in the country.
“We saw a subtle normalisation of sex work in the post-Aragalaya period, with even some prominent politicians from both the Opposition and the Government speaking about the protection of sex workers and so on. We see these recent raids and increased media attention as a reaction to that.”
Police response
Speaking to The Sunday Morning, Police Spokesperson Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Nihal Thalduwa said the arrests in Negombo had happened over about 15 days, with 53 spas being raided. “All sex workers were directed to medical tests. This is a normal practice. From the raids last month, two tested positive for HIV.”
Responding to allegations that women Police officers had not gone for the raids, DIG Thalduwa said: “How can we take women to spas? Anyway women cannot go as decoys or go with decoys. Women Police officers are only taken if body searches are required; we don’t need a woman to search a location.”
“Licensed spas operate within the law but in Negombo, the Officer-in-Charge (OIC) had received information that brothels were operating under the guise of spas. He had then investigated the situation through decoys,” DIG Thalduwa added, noting that the Police did not aim to conduct random raids on spas.