SEX WORK AND THE LAW - HIV/AIDS Data Hub

or accommodates a woman for sex work may be sentenced to up to five years in prison,
or detention, or surveillance. 285 Offences also apply to managers of hotels, restaurants,
bars, show businesses, and taxi companies, whose staff are involved in organizing
prostitution. 286
The 1999 Regulations Concerning the Management of Public Places of Entertainment
prohibit commercial practices involving sex work. 287 These regulations are supported by
local licensing measures.
AIDS Regulations
The Regulations on AIDS Prevention and Treatment 288 require local governments to provide
confidential HIV testing and antiretroviral drugs to residents, prohibits discrimination
against people living with HIV and guarantees the right to healthcare, employment,
marriage, and education. Under the Regulations, people who intentionally transmit the
virus to others will be punished by civil and criminal means. Provision of condoms at
establishments may be ordered by health authorities under Article 61 of the Regulations.
The sanction for failure to comply with an order relating to condom availability is
revocation of business permission or license. Comprehensive Regulations on prevention,
testing and treatment have also been enacted at provincial level e.g., in Yunnan Province.
It is unclear how the Regulations have been applied to sex workers.
Under the Frontier Health and Quarantine Law, persons knowingly infected with HIV who
continue to practice sex work commit the offence of creating a risk of spreading disease.
The penalty for this offence is detention from 6 months to 2 years. 289
5.2.2 Law enforcement practices
Nature of sex work
Several sources refer to a recognized typology that categorizes sex work as falling within
seven tiers, which informs law enforcement practices. This list should be regarded as “far
from exhaustive”: 290
i. Ernăi: mistress or ‘second wife’. The ernai receives a monthly fee from a steady client
in exchange for sex.
ii.
Bāopó is similar to the ernai, although for limited times only.
Selling and Buying of Sex.
285 Article 359.
286 Article 361.
287 Section 4(25) See: Jeffreys, E. (2004) China, Sex and Prostitution, London & New York: Routledge Curzon,
p.146.
288 State Council Decree No. 457 of 2006.
289 Wu Z., Sullivan S., Wang Y., Rotheram M., Detels R., (2007) Evolution of China's response to HIV/AIDS.
Lancet 369:679-690, at p.683.
290 Dougherty N., (2006) Prostitution in contemporary China - the case of Shanghai Jiading Lund University's
Masters thesis; See also: Sex work in China, Asian Labour Update 33, December 1999-February 2000; and
see: Hong, Y. & Li, X. (2008), Behavioral Studies of Female Sex Workers in China: A Literature Review and
Recommendation for Future Research, AIDS and Behaviour, Vol. 12, No. 4, July, p.629; Huang Y., Pan, S., (2004)
Job mobility of brothel-based Female Sex Workers in current Northeast China: the process from xiagang worker
(lay-offs) to sex worker, Institute for Sexuality and Gender, Department of Sociology Renmin University of China,
Beijing; c.f. Tucker J., (2011) The social context of sexual HIV prevention among female sex workers in China, Int
J of Epidemiology, 15 February 2011.
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