Mexican men, female sex workers and HIV/AIDS at the U.S.-Mexico border

This chapter examines behaviors which place female sex workers in El Paso and Juarez and their clients, among them migrant farmworkers, at risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. It investigates the differences in drug use and sexual behaviors between two cohorts of female sex workers in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, and the implications of these behaviors for HIV transmission. The chapter discusses the possible risks of HIV exposure for sojourners and those for migrant workers who come from the interior of Mexico and stay in the border region only for the time necessary to secure safe transportation to other agricultural zones in the interior of the US Given the relationship between drugs, sex and HIV transmission, it also examines the drug using behavior of female sex workers in both cities, and how these behaviors affected the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, among a specific segment of the Mexican male population, namely, migrant farmworkers.