Implementing Comprehensive HIV/STI Programmes with Sex Workers Implementing Comprehensive HIV/STI Programmes with | Page 108

4 Condom and Lubricant Programming

Condom use with intimate partners
While most condom promotion messages with sex workers focus on condom use with clients and
casual partners, in some cases condom promotion programmes identify a need to increase condom
use between sex workers and their regular clients and/or their intimate partners. Experienced
community outreach workers have developed communication methods to effectively discuss use
of condoms with regular partners without intruding on a sex worker’s private life. For example,
community outreach workers from the Targeted Outreach Program (TOP) in Myanmar use examples
from their own regular partnerships to engage in targeted counselling with sex workers around the
need to protect oneself in longer-term relationships. In general, discussion of condom use with
regular partners needs to be handled discreetly by community outreach workers in order to respect
the private lives of sex workers.
Female condoms
The female condom is an important preventive commodity for female sex workers that is frequently
neglected in overall condom programming. Promoting the female condom requires the skills to
demonstrate its correct use as well as an understanding of its advantages for sex w