Thirty-two percent male clients stated that their first sexual intercourse was between the age of 18-20. About a third of the auto rickshaw drivers and plantation workers had their first sexual intercourse between 24 to 26 years. Of the students that had reported to have ever had sex, 10% had said that their first sexual experience was before the age of 15 years and 35% had said it was between 15 and 17 years of age. A total of 23% students said that they could not recall their age at first sex.
Age at first commercial sex
About 53% and 40% FSWs had said that their age at first commercial sex was after 23 years and between 17-22 years respectively (Table 4). The mean age at first commercial sex was 23.5 years for FSWs and 24.5 years for male clients.
Table 4: Age of FSWs at first commercial sexual intercourse
|
Age in years |
% reporting |
|
|
16 and below |
7 |
|
|
17-19 |
18 |
|
|
20-22 |
23 |
|
|
23-25 |
18 |
|
|
26-28 |
14 |
|
|
29 and above |
20 |
|
About 60% clients of sex workers reported that their first commercial sex was between the ages of 20-25 years. About 15% of the clients reported first commercial sex before 19 years of age and 25% at age 26 and above.
Number of partners
The average number of commercial partners during the preceding 12 months were four for clients of sex workers, two for male auto rickshaw drivers, one for male plantation worker and four for male university students. The average number of non-regular, noncommercial partners during the preceding 12 months were two for male clients of FSWs, one each for male auto rickshaw drivers and male plantation workers and three for male university students.
Occupational Profile
Clients of sex workers
The occupation of clients of sex workers presented a mixed picture. About a fifth were auto or taxi drivers. There were almost as many unskilled workers (18%) and skilled workers (20%). A total of 17% respondents had said that they were self-employed, a tenth said that they had white collared jobs and 7% were reportedly working as manual labourers (Table 5).
Table 5: Occupation of clients of sex workers
Occupation
Drivers (auto, taxi) 21%
Skilled worker 20%
Unskilled worker 18%
Self employed/Business/Trade 17%
Clerical/salesman 10%
Manual labourer 7%
Cultivation/agriculture labour 3%
Supervisory level/officer/executive 2%
Others 2%
Secondary occupation of sex workers
A total of 26% sex workers were reported to have a secondary occupation. Nine percent of the sex workers worked as housemaids and 7% worked in trade, for example, as shop girls, as door-to-door salesgirls or as street vendors. Six percent were reported to be working in small companies (Table 6).
Table 6: Secondary occupation of sex workers
Job
Housemaid/Household job 9%
Working in small companies 6%
Sales woman in shop 3%
Street Vendors 2%
Sales Personnel - Door to Door 2%
Others 4%
Media and messages
Study findings indicated that the habit of watching TV daily was highest among male plantation workers (58%) and lowest among the male university students (14%) during the preceding month (Figure 14). The proportion of male university students who said that they listened to radio was 61%, which was higher than the same habit among other groups.
The practice of listening to the radio or watching TV was comparatively low among sex workers. Apart from plantation workers, the number of respondents who had not listened to the radio during the preceding 4 weeks was higher than the number that had not watched the television.
Four most frequently cited sources of HIV/AIDS information
All the groups, except sex workers, had said that newspapers/magazines was the main source of information on HIV/AIDS. The main source of information for sex workers was reported to be cinema (Table 7). The other two common sources of information were television and radio.
