Fighting HIV in Quito’s Red Light District

PHOTO OF THE WEEK (30th October 2014) “No condom, no deal. Our customers know that is the rule of the house,” says Martha, speaking over the booming sound of salsa music at a brothel called Bar 122 in Quito, Ecuador. Martha understands the importance of prevention to fight HIV for sex workers like herself. She and others at the bar receive free condoms and counselling on HIV from peer educators of the Network of Sex Workers of Ecuador, an organization which also defends and promotes human rights of sex workers. The HIV epidemic in Ecuador is concentrated, with a prevalence of 0.6 percent in the general population, but with much higher prevalence among the transgender population, men who have sex with men and female sex workers.