Sex with Americans risky for Mexican hookers

Disease rate higher for those with U.S. clients, study says

By Cheryl Clark

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

November 28, 2007

Female prostitutes in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez who catered to American “johns” had a 50 percent higher rate of syphilis or another sexually transmitted disease than those who didn't, according to a UCSD study.

The women paid by American customers were younger and more likely to speak English than their counterparts, and they were more apt to inject drugs and have unprotected sex, said Steffanie Strathdee, chief of the international health division at the University of California San Diego. She wrote the report, which appears in the current edition of the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

“A lot of (customers) who go to Mexico to have sex may be lulled into a false sense of complacency,” Strathdee said. “They think that if the woman speaks English and looks OK and clean, she is safe. But these are highly vulnerable women. They are being bribed to have unprotected sex.”

The prostitutes with U.S. clients typically received $30 for unprotected sex versus $20 for sex with a condom, she found.

The economic incentive may explain why prostitutes with U.S. clients had higher rates of gonorrhea, syphilis, HIV and chlamydia than women who did not engage in sex for pay with Americans.