Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Harm reduction and structural approaches to reduce HIV risk among sex workers face several barriers. One such barrier is based on moral argument, and it has a rich historical context. This paper will examine the historical context of interventions with sex workers in New York City during the Progressive Era β Present at the time, though under a different name, the harm reduction approach was largely dismissed.
These same moral underpinnings may be active today in driving interventions and policy toward those that are morally focused and away from those that focus on harm reduction and structural change.
Even in regions without a generalized epidemic, there is often a concentrated epidemic among three high risk groups: injection drug users, men who have sex with men, and sex workers. Social context, harm reduction, and structural factors have been interwoven into interventions aimed at reducing HIV risk behavior. This paper will explore the historical context of interventions with sex workers in New York City during the Progressive Era β , which was a time when the white slavery scare was at its height.
Historical context will be explored as one aspect of social context in order to contribute to the pool of contextual knowledge in the area of HIV risk reduction. Vice reform was infused into the progressive agenda Anderson, Langum , p.
In other words, progressive reformers sought to solve the problem of prostitution by its elimination. Interventions targeting sex workers were actively implemented during the Progressive Era.
