As many as 18,000 teenagers in the country are involved in sex work and most of them are being left out of the HIV/AIDS prevention programs.
The majority of them have been forced into the profession due to poverty, lack of education, vulnerable families and being married off early.
Experts are of the view that these people are being deprived of being integrated into the programs as they remain hidden due to social stigma.
They said that given that these teenage girls are more vulnerable to the sexually transmitted diseases, implementation of a coordinated project including the 18,000 teenagers is imperative.
Seventeen-year-old Kuhu (not her real name) came to Dhaka from Syedpur with her boyfriend when she was only 13.
Her dream of a better life and supporting her family was crushed after she was raped by her boyfriend and sold to a hotel, which also ran a brothel, in the capital.
Although she managed to escape the hotel, she hasn’t been able to leave the profession.
“We are not free, we are forced to remain hidden. Who wants to bother with medical tests?” an irate Kuhu told Bangla Tribune when asked whether she had been tested.
In June last year, Save the Children, funded by UNICEF Bangladesh, implemented a program for the development of 1,000 teenage sex-workers. Their health care was made easier in Dhaka, Chattogram and Sylhet by integrating them in an HIV prevention program.
The international NGO’s HIV/AIDS program chief Dr Lima Rahman said that although 18 percent of those included in their programs, have to be teenagers, only three percent participate.
She said that since those programs are general, the teenage sex workers were often missed although they are the ones most at risk and hence they implemented the special program in June.
“Then there are those who remain hidden to an extent where they can’t be identified and can’t be brought under the program,” she said.
“Teenagers are more prone to becoming victims of abuse. They are victims of so much stigma and violence,” she added.
According to Rahman, it will be harder to bring them under the program unless the social stigma is disassociated for which public awareness is imperative.
Directorate General of Health Services HIV/AIDS program Director Samiul Islam told Bangla Tribune that they try to bring the teenagers into the government drop-in centres.
“But since they won’t come directly, a PR counsellor is elected amongst them to make them aware,” he said.
Islam says that the workers themselves be made aware of the importance of safe sex to prevent unwanted pregnancies as well as diseases.
AIDS Prevention and Control Program former project director chairman Nazrul Islam said that a human approach is needed to integrate these sex-workers into the programs.
According to Save the Children, there are 102,000 sex workers in Bangladesh a majority of whom remain unaware of the health risks associated with their profession.