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Frequency and Factors Associated with Violence Against Female Sex Workers in Tehran, Iran

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Abstract

Female Sex Workers are among those women who are significantly more vulnerable to violence. Apart from the human rights perspective, assessing the frequency of violence among sex workers is especially important because of its relation to the spread of HIV and other sexually-transmitted infections. This cross-sectional, observational study was conducted among 263 female sex workers in southern parts of Tehran and their suburban regions in 2017 where the population is considered more socially and economically vulnerable. To evaluate univariate analysis between sexual violence and physical violence as dependent variables and the assumed exposures as well as confounders, the models were built distinctly. The models included exposures of the questionnaire as independent variables. The exposure factors with a p value of less than 0.2 were moved into the multiple logistic regression models. The rates of sexual violence and physical violence were reported as 72.2% and 82.3% respectively. According to our results, sexual violence is associated with higher education, working in streets, drug usage, having the experience of forced unprotected sex and feeling of discrimination. Physical violence is associated with low education, drug usage and feeling of discrimination in multiple analyses. Addressing the violence against female sex workers is a complex multifactorial issue in Iran. It requires structural changes in some social, legal, economic and health infrastructure programs.

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Notes

  1. Article 637- When a man and a woman who are not married to each other, commit indecent acts other than zina, such askissing or sleeping next to one another, they shall be sentenced to up to ninety-nine lashes; and if the act is committed by forceonly the one who has used force shall be punished. An act that is not punishable but violates public prudency, they shall only be sentenced to 10 days to 2 months’ imprisonment or up to 74 lashes.

  2. Temporary marriage is a kind of marriage in Shia Islam, in which an unmarried Muslim woman can marry a married/unmarried Muslim man for a fixed-time of period in return for a set amount of money.

    Reference: Inhorn (2006). Making Muslim babies: IVF and gamete donation in Sunniversus Shi’a Islam.Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 30, 427–450.

  3. Iran has a Gender Inequality Index (GII) value of 0.461, ranking it 109 out of 148 countries in the 2017 index.

    Reference: http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/GII.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Affairs Department, Iranian Blood Transfusion Organization, Tehran, Iran

    Nasim Sadat Hosseini Divkolaye

  2. Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK

    Nasim Sadat Hosseini Divkolaye

  3. Department of Psychology, Tonekabon Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tonekabon, Iran

    Javad Khalatbari & Marjan Faramarzi

  4. Blood Transfusion Research Center, Iranian High Institute for Research & Education on Transfusion Medicine, Tehran, Iran

    Fariba Seighali & Ali ArabKhazaeli

  5. Department of Psychiatry, Cochlear Research Center, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Shokoufeh Radfar

  6. Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard University & T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Cambridge, USA

    Frederick M. Burkle

  7. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, USA

    Frederick M. Burkle

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  1. Nasim Sadat Hosseini Divkolaye
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  2. Javad Khalatbari
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Correspondence to Javad Khalatbari.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of Ethical Committee of Islamic Azad University, Tonekabon Branch and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Hosseini Divkolaye, N.S., Khalatbari, J., Faramarzi, M. et al. Frequency and Factors Associated with Violence Against Female Sex Workers in Tehran, Iran. Sexuality & Culture 25, 1–17 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-020-09745-1

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