ABSTRACT
In the last two decades of the twentieth century, public concern over prostitution has most often focused on the sexual transmission of infection, particularly HIV. In our own work during the 1980s and 1990s, we certainly studied prostitution in relation to drug use as a means of understanding better the possible onward transmission of HIV (Hart et al. 1989; McKeganey and Barnard 1992; McKeganey et al. 1991). Other researchers also adopted this approach (Day 1988; Faugier et al. 1992; Ward et al. 1993), but during the 1990s there was increasing interest in the other risks faced by prostitute women, with client violence a key concern (Barnard 1993; Whitaker and Hart 1996; Ward et al. 1999). It was clear that street-based prostitution afforded the greatest degree of risk, with women routinely confronting clients whose behaviour ranges in severity from minor abuse to serious physical assault (Barnard 1993; Lowman and Frazer 1995; Silbert 1981).
