Behavioural Surveillance Surveys - The Wisdom of Whores

in riskier behavior (i.e., not using condoms)
if she can financially afford to lose a customer.
Again, the categories for sources of additional
income have to be developed locally,
based on the usual set of possibilities. These
categories may already be known for a given
target group, or may need to be elicited
through individual or group interviewing.
Note that multiple answers are possible for 207.
This question is asked without reading out
the categories to the respondent. For each
answer mentioned by the respondent, you
circle 1 for YES. Then you probe by asking,
“Are there any other sources of additional
income besides what you just mentioned?”
and/or “Is there anything else you haven’t
mentioned?” After the respondent finishes
mentioning categories, you must then circle
2 for NO for each category not mentioned by
the respondent, including the DON’T KNOW
and NO RESPONSE categories.
Q208, Q209 : The purpose of these two
questions is to determine if the respondent
is responsible for supporting other people
besides herself and if so, how many people.
Sometimes the need to provide support to
other people pushes a woman into more
risky behavior.
Section 3 : Number and types of partners
FSWs are not asked if they have ever had
sex, under the assumption that all sex workers
have been or are sexually active within the
past 12 months.
Q301 : The purpose of this question is to
learn how early the respondent began having
sex, providing guidance about the appropriate
age to begin interventions with young girls
who might ultimately drift into prostitution.
Q302 : This question asks about how many
different partners the respondent has had in
the past 30 days. This question is different
in terms of time span to Q304 in the adult
questionnaire, which asks how many partners
a person has had during the past 3 months,
and during the past 12 months. The assumption
here is that sex workers have more partners
than the average non-sex worker, and would
have trouble remembering how many partners
there had been during longer time periods.
Q303 : Similarly to Q305 in the adult
questionnaire, this question seeks to establish
types of sexual partners. The types listed
here were based on a decade of experience
interviewing sex workers worldwide.
However, in a particular cultural setting,
different categories might be more appropriate.
Certainly different wording might exist to
describe the different types of partners a sex
workers might have. Often there are two
general categories, paying and non-paying.
Within those two categories, however, or
overlapping those designations, would be
“regular” and “non-regular” or “casual.” For
each category listed, paying one-time client,
paying regular client, and non-paying partner
(which includes spouse or live-in partner),
you list the total number of partners within
the past 7 days. Then you must check to see
that the total of those 3 categories matches
exactly the total number of partners listed in
Q302. If the numbers don’t match, then you
must continue to question the respondent to
verify the number of each type of partner, and
then say, “So then, if we add up the total
number of partners you’ve just told me about,
then that makes X partners all together. Is that
the total number of partners I should list for
you during the past 7 days?”
B EHAV I OR A L S U R V EI L L A NC E SURV EY S APPEN DI X 2
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