Working the Streets across the Border: The Occupational Health of Hong Kong's Mainland Chinese Migrant Sex Workers

In Hong Kong, it was estimated that there were at least 200,000 female sex workers (FSWs) in 2002; the total female population involved as workers, supporting staff and partners of the male clients exceeded half a million in a city of 6.8 million people. This study sought to examine the occupational health concerns for mainland Chinese immigrant FSWs in Hong Kong. A total sample of 83 street workers was surveyed and a focus group of six women was held. The mean age of the women interviewed was 35 years. Sixty-eight women (82.23%) had been in Hong Kong for less than one year of whom 42.4% had been in Hong Kong for less than three months. The women often tended to work for long hours even when they got sick. Most of their income was sent back to China to support families. The streets posed a dangerous environment with risk of insults, police checks as well as abuse and robbery from clients. Fundamentally, poverty and the big gap in wealth between Hong Kong and China were the factors that had driven these women to work on the streets of Hong Kong. Explored are issues of power and powerlessness in which visible and overt forms of domination is exerted on migrant sex workers' lives through Hong Kong's current legal system. Our recommendation is to protect the basic rights of mainland FSWs with regards to such issues as legitimate access to health care and occupational safety.