Assessment of the targeted programme for the use of Female Condoms in the urban settings of the three States in India

A female condom promotion program among Female Sex workers was implemented in the states of Jharkhand, Odisha and Rajasthan in India from 2010-2013 by UNFPA in partnership with State AIDS control society in the urban settings... [ view full abstract ]

A female condom promotion program among Female Sex workers was implemented in the states of Jharkhand, Odisha and Rajasthan in India from 2010-2013 by UNFPA in partnership with State AIDS control society in the urban settings of three states of Rajasthan , Odisha and Jharkhand.The baseline was undertaken in the year 2010 and the endline was undertaken in 2013. The major objectives of the study was to 1)To estimate the current use of female condom by the sex workers both with paying clients and non paying partners2)To analyse changes in behaviour of the sex workers regarding consistent condom use from the baseline3)To analyse perceptions around female condoms and its use by the sex workers with paying and non paying partners and 4)Suggest future strategies to improve the FC promotion in these areas.

In each state, districts representing the universe were selected using probability proportion to size technique. Accordingly 568 female sex workers in each state was estimated with a total of 1704 female sex workers being estimated for the three states. In-depth interviews were also carried out for 4 stakeholders (NGOs), 4 peer educators and 24 key-informants in each state. The purpose of in-depth interviews was to understand the challenges faced, opportunity provided and the extent to which the programme has been successful.

The study revealed that 1) The level of awareness of Female condoms had increased from 77.8 percent in the baseline to 94.3 percent in the end line. 2) The user ship of FC has also gone up as 56.7 percent of the FSWs had ever used female condom in their lifetime against 28.8 percent reported in the baseline which was a statistically significant improvement and 3) The communication campaigns are key to increased use of Female condoms among Sex workers .