Susanne Y. P. Choi

The influence of power, poverty and agency in the negotiation of condom use for female sex workers in mainland China

This paper analyses barriers to consistent condom use in the context of transactional sex among female sex workers in mainland China. It reveals how differences in socioeconomic profile and organisational hierarchies amongst different groups of sex workers create different barriers to condom use. Data was collected by means of field observation of entertainment venues and in‐depth interviews. Findings suggest that, compared with other sex workers, street‐walkers are less likely to use condoms with their clients, hold highly disadvantaged socioeconomic profiles and work in isolation. Major barriers to condom use link to economic deprivation and threats of violence from clients. For the women working in entertainment venues, drunkenness of clients, pricing mechanisms and familiarity with clients pose barriers to condom use. Yet within all these constraints women are not powerless and instead find ways to exercise agency and gain personal protection and economic advantage. In the newly emerging China, both structural hierarchies of work and individual agency inform condom use by female sex workers. Future HIV intervention programmes need to take these factors into account in order to meet the needs of different groups of women sex workers.

Obstacles to Colorectal Cancer Screening in Chinese: A Study Based on the Health Belief Model

BACKGROUND:Colorectal cancer (CRC) has emerged as the second most common cancer in Asia. This study uses the Health Belief Model (HBM) to examine the factors associated with the uptake of CRC testing.METHODS:A population-based telephone survey in which 1,004 randomly selected Chinese residents of Hong Kong aged between 30 and 65 yr were interviewed in 2006. Instruments were developed to measure the variables pertinent to the HBM, including perceived susceptibility, severity, benefit, barriers, and cues to action. The relationships of these predictors with CRC testing were examined using bivariate and multiple logistic regression analyses.RESULTS:Ten percent of the respondents had undertaken a CRC screening test. In the multiple logistic regression analyses, knowledge factors that were positively associated with CRC testing included knowledge of CRC symptoms (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 3.33, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.21–9.11) and knowledge of CRC risk factors (aOR 2.61, 95% CI 1.16–5.88). Five of the variables pertaining to the HBM were significant correlates of CRC testing—perceived severity of CRC (aOR 0.28, 95% CI 0.13–0.65), perceived health and psychological barriers to CRC testing (aOR 0.42, 95% CI 0.21–0.84, 95% CI 0.21–0.85), perceived access barriers to CRC testing (aOR 0.22, 95% CI 0.05–0.85), physicians recommendation (indicator of cues to action) (aOR 23.50, 95% CI 10.66–51.80), and having health insurance (indicator of cues to action) (aOR 2.06, 95% CI 1.01–4.19).CONCLUSIONS:CRC testing compliance among this Asian population is low. Knowledge of CRC symptoms and risk factors are low. Perceived health, psychological, and access barriers to CRC testing are high. The physicians recommendation and having health insurance coverage significantly increase testing, but physicians mainly recommend patients with a family history of CRC for testing, and only around one-third of the population has health insurance.

Client-perpetuated violence and condom failure among female sex workers in southwestern China.

Objectives: This research examined factors associated with condom failure, i.e., slippage or breakage, among female sex workers (FSWs) in China. Special attention was paid to the association between client-perpetuated violence and condom failure. Methods: Two hundred FSWs were recruited for a community-based voluntary human immunodeficiency virus prevention project. Participants completed a face-to-face structured questionnaire that collected information on their sociodemographic characteristics, working conditions, experience of client-perpetuated violence, and sexual risk behavior. Results: The prevalence of condom slippage and condom breakage in the 3 months before the survey was reported at 36.2% and 34%, respectively, of all sexual contact in which a condom was used. The prevalence of client-perpetuated violence in the previous year was 68.4%. Logistic regression analysis showed that after adjusting for other factors, condom failure was significantly associated with drug use [adjusted odds ratios (aOR = 4.01)], condom use of coworkers (aOR = 0.39), and client-perpetuated violence [aOR = 2.30 (low violence vs. high violence)]. Conclusion: Condom failure is a common problem among FSWs, particularly drug-using sex workers and those who have experienced client-perpetuated violence. On the other hand, condom use of coworkers is negatively associated with condom failure.

Forgiveness and Transitional Justice in the Czech Republic

This article examines major theoretical assumptions about forgiveness by victims of human rights abuses in the context of transitional justice in the Czech Republic. The authors hypothesize that forgiveness is facilitated by restoring equality between victims and perpetrators, namely: individual, social and political empowerment of victims; decreasing the superior position of perpetrators, especially through their punishment; and a repentant gesture of perpetrators towards victims, especially by apologizing. The results of path analysis confirm that religious belief, individual, social, and political empowerment, punishment, and apology directly promote forgiveness. This enables the authors to distinguish four types of forgiveness: religious, reparatory, retributive, and reconciliatory forgiveness. They suggest that policy interventions that promote forgiveness may not be mutually exclusive as often proposed in the dilemmas of transitional justice

Victims on Transitional Justice: Lessons from the Reparation of Human Rights Abuses in the Czech Republic

This article examines major theoretical dilemmas underpinning measures of transitional justice in general and the reparation of victims of human rights violations in particular. It assesses the role of financial compensation, justice, truth-telling, forgiveness, democratization, and other factors that are assumed to heal victims of political violence. In order to test their influence, we conducted a survey of former political prisoners in the Czech Republic. Findings from our regression analyses reveal that reparation is a two-dimensional process that incorporates sociopolitical redress and inner healing. These dimensions correlate positively with financial compensation and democratization; and negatively with public truth telling, the lack of reconciliation, and continued stigmatization by neighbors. At the same time, most proxies of retributive desires are not significantly related to the outcomes of reparation. These associations are interpreted in the light of narrative accounts obtained through interviews, letters, and observations. The results indicate that individual reparation, if it is to be successful, must be an organic part of a broader policy of social reconstruction. Based on our findings, we propose a victim-oriented model of social reconstruction for transitional countries.

Getting Ahead in the Capitalist Paradise: Migration from China and Socioeconomic Attainment in Colonial Hong Kong1

This article examines the initial labor market outcome and the subsequent mobility process of Chinese immigrants in Colonial Hong Kong using complete work history data and event history modeling. Contrary to the rhetoric that Hong Kong is a capitalist paradise for adventurers, the data showed that immigrants were penalized in their initial class placement, subsequent mobility, and current income attainment. Differences in educational attainment and the lack of transferability of pre-migration human capital partly explained the attainment gap between immigrants and the natives. Yet the disadvantage of immigrants was also embedded in the local economic structure. The process of deindustrialization significantly lowered the chance of immigrants getting good first jobs when entering the labor market. Moreover, since deindustrialization benefited the natives by providing them with more opportunities in the service sector, it inadvertently widened the gap in upward mobility chances between natives and immigrants.

A comparison of the acceptance of immunochemical faecal occult blood test and colonoscopy in colorectal cancer screening: a prospective study among Chinese

Aliment Pharmacol Ther 2010; 32: 74–82

Masculine Compromise: Migration, Family, and Gender in China

Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: Migration, Family, and Masculinity in Postsocialist China 2. Marginal Men and Chinas Grand Narratives 3. Striking a Balance: Courtship, Sexuality, and Marriage 4. Conjugal Power and Diverse Strategies 5. Housework and Respectability 6. Migration, Fatherhood, and Emotionality 7. Filial Piety from Afar: Migrant Sons Renegotiating Elderly Care 8. Masculine Compromise: A Feminist Framework of Changing Masculinity Bibliography Index

Wife Beating in South Africa An Imbalance Theory of Resources and Power

This article develops an imbalance theory to explain physical violence against women in intimate relationships in South Africa. The theory proposes four typologies: dependence, compensation, submission, and transgression, through which imbalances in resource contribution and power distribution between spouses are hypothesized to contribute to violence. The dependence hypothesis suggests that economic dependence of the wife will lead to more violence. The compensation hypothesis argues that the husband will use force to compensate for his inability to live up to the male-provider norm. The submission hypothesis suggests that violence will increase due to the submission of women in male-dominated families. Finally, the transgression hypothesis argues that men in female-dominated families will use force to punish their wives for supposedly transgressing the gender norm of male dominance. Empirical evidence provided some support for the dependence, submission, and transgression hypotheses.

Heterogeneous and vulnerable: the health risks facing transnational female sex workers

Representations of transnational sex workers have been dominated by the trafficked victim discourse that often overlooks the heterogeneity of this population and variations in the health risks that different sub-groups face. This paper addresses this deficiency by examining differences in the socio-economic backgrounds, working conditions, HIV/AIDS knowledge, and vulnerability to health risks of female sex workers from Russia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Mainland China currently working in the Chinese city of Macau. It also examines the correlates of three health risks: client-perpetrated violence, non-condom use and condom failure. The results show major differences in the socio-economic profiles, working conditions and exposure to health risks of the four groups of workers studied. They also suggest that age, ethnicity, education, economic pressure, AIDS and STI knowledge, and workplace condom-use norm are significant correlates of the three health risks examined. The findings shed light on the importance of locating the social and cultural contexts that constrain the response of different groups of transnational sex workers to health risks, and the need to tailor intervention measures to meet the specific conditions of individual groups. They also point out the urgency of tackling the interpersonal and structural obstacles to safe sex practices among marginalised populations.