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Article Launched: 7/01/2006 11:47 PM


Day laborers hired for sex
Health: Officials worried practice may promote spread of AIDS.
By Susan Abram, Staff writer
Long Beach Press Telegram

VAN NUYS - As they pass time on the corner of Kester and Oxnard streets looking for work, day laborers tell stories.

They talk about a man who drives by in the afternoons, pretending to need someone to mow the lawn, trim some trees or paint the garage.

What the man really wants is sex. And he's looking for a man to hire for the day.

"I tried to ask him what kind of work he wanted, and at first he said one thing, then another, so I didn't want to go," one worker recently said at the Van Nuys street corner.

"These days, you have to know who you are getting in the car with," he said. "These days, you better ask all the questions before you get in and go. Bad things can happen very fast."

With thousands of undocumented immigrants looking for work every day in Southern California, the practice of hiring day laborers for sex has some health experts concerned about the rapid spread of AIDS in the immigrant community.

For the past three years, outreach workers have handed out safe-sex booklets to men at Kester and Oxnard, near one of several Los Angeles-area locations listed on a Web site used by gay and bisexual men in search of sex.

The men using the Web site target day laborers because many of them are young, alone and desperate for money - especially after passing an entire morning without finding any work, said Dr. Frank Galvan, assistant professor at the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles.

Surprised by the discovery of the Web site in 2004, Galvan began researching the practice across Southern California. What he discovered alarmed him.

Threat to laborers
In a survey of 450 day laborers at the various sites listed on the Web site, 38 percent said they had been solicited for sex while seeking work. Ten percent of them accepted the offer. A majority of those said they did not use condoms.

Of those who accepted the offer, 86 percent denied being gay. The same 86 percent said they agreed to have sex for money because they hadn't worked that day and needed the money.

During his research, Galvan was told laborers were sometimes threatened with deportation if they refused sex.

County health experts say that while the soliciting of day laborers is alarming, they are more concerned about the transmission of HIV and the use of crystal meth among gay and bisexual men across all communities.

Of the 450 day laborers surveyed, only one tested positive for HIV.

"I haven't received anything that suggests that we need to dramatically shift HIV resources to this issue," said Mario Perez, director of the Los Angeles County Office of AIDS Program and Policy. "It's alarming that it's happening, but when the dust settles, we try to get to the men who are at a higher risk."

In Los Angeles County, HIV and AIDS among Latinos continues to increase. Health experts estimate 48 percent of all AIDS cases are Latinos, primarily among men who have sex with other men. New cases of syphilis also jumped 40 percent in Los Angeles County last year and of the new cases, 42 percent were Latinos.

Perez said if more day laborers are being solicited, those who are victimized would likely remain silent. He said the practice has been going on for at least eight years.

"We continue to be challenged with some cultural issues around homophobia, and the stigma and shame of AIDS," Perez said. "I still think there's shame and stigma to either being gay or being bisexual in the community, so those might be some deterrents of sharing their experience with other counterparts. We may never know the true extent of what's happening."

Galvan cautioned that his survey of the 450 day laborers was not conducted randomly. He said he visited five sites in Los Angeles and one in the San Fernando Valley - all of which were listed on the Web site.

Issue elsewhere?
But he and others aware of the practice say that if it is happening in Los Angeles, then day laborers across the country are likely being solicited as well.

"If it's happening in Los Angeles, then it's happening in New York and it's happening in Miami. We need everybody to know what's happening," said Victor Martinez, regional director for Bienestar, a nonprofit organization that works to fund education, research and policy for Latinos and HIV prevention.

Martinez, who presented Galvan's study in Sacramento recently, said it is not the agency's policy to judge the men if they accept the sexual advances. Their job, he said, is to warn the men they could contract HIV and to secure more funding through Los Angeles County Health Services for additional research.

"People still die of AIDS," Martinez said. "Especially our clients, because they don't have access to health care. Nobody talks about it, but they are the new faces of AIDS."

The Los Angeles Police Department said it was not aware of the practice, which did not surprise Martinez.

"It is understandable because this community is disenfranchised. They do not speak English. They are undocumented. They are afraid. But it doesn't mean it doesn't happen," he said.

Susan Abram can be reached at susan.abram@dailynews.com or (81 713-3664