Abstract

ANDRESSA BEVILACQUA, Patriccia  and  CAMACHO COSTA, Grace Laura.   Sex workers of Cochabamba: a sociodemographic approach . Gac Med Bol [online]. 2020, vol.43, n.1, pp.34-40. ISSN 1012-2966.

Objectives: identify the sociodemographic profile of sex workers in the department of Cochabamba. Method: the study was non-experimental, cross-sectional and descriptive, carried out at the Centro Departamental de Vigilancia, Información y Referencia - CDVIR, with a sample of 433 sex workers. It presents a confidence level of 95% and a sampling error of 4.63%. The instrument was a self-applicable questionnaire validated by the Teaching and Research Committee of the Instituto Psiquiátrico San Juan de Dios, in which variables that were subjected to frequency studies and measures of central tendency and dispersion were used. The principles of the Declaration of Helsinki were complied with. Results: the sex workers are young, coming from the urban area of the cities of the country’s main axis, they do not have a fixed partner, they have children, a high level of education, they do not practice any religion, they consume alcoholic beverages regularly, they started life work and sex work at an early age, without relatives who know about sex work, less than five years of activity, desire to leave sex work, but without conditions to do so due to economic needs. Conclusions: women who carry out sex work have a high family burden and difficulties in accessing the formal labor market to generate income to subsist and maintain the offspring, a result of the feminization of poverty, the male chauvinism of society and the patriarchal social style, associated with the abandonment of the State. It is necessary to change the paradigm of women in society to change this reality.

Keywords : sex work; social group; women; population characteristics.

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