Women involved in the sex trade and their intimate partners: Exploring gender relations, health and healthy/unhealthy practices

The major goal of this pilot project is to explore the nature of relationships between female sex trade workers and their intimate partners, and to examine the ways in which relationship issues influence the health and well-being of the women and their partners. As part of this exploration we will examine how relationship issues are shaped by community and societal influences (eg. gender, race, and class relations) and how (in turn) the relationships (and the women's and men's understandings of the relationship) play a role in the health and well-being of the women and their partners including healthy/unhealthy practices. There is a substantial body of research focused on female sex trade workers relations with clients,the meanings attached to such relations, how such relations are shaped by the broader socio-economic and political context, and the impact of such relations on the women's health and well-being. What is less well known, is how female sex trade workers' intimate relationships impact the women's health. It is this gap in the current literature that we will be attemping to fill. As part of this pilot research we will also begin to explore the potential usefullness of various strategies that service providers and policy-makers might use to assist in their work with female sex trade workers and their intimate partners, and that might help to address the immediate and long-term health needs of this vulnerable population.