Bhubaneswar: A National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) report has placed Odisha among the top 12 states in the country to have the highest concentration of both female sex workers (FSWs) and men who have sex with men (MSM).
This was as per findings of the programmatic mapping and population size estimation (PMPSE) conducted by NACO in 2022 that has been published in the recent issue of the peer-reviewed journal PLOS Global Public Health.
The community-led PMPSE was carried out in 651 districts of 32 states and Union territories.
According to the report, the state recorded an estimated 24,620 FSWs and 5,977 MSM. Of the 9.95 lakh FSWs in the country, Karnataka topped the chart with 1.53 lakh FSWs, followed by Andhra Pradesh (1.19 lakh) and Maharashtra (95,351).
According to NACO, there are 2,113 hotspots and 190 network operators in the state. The hotspots include brothels, lodges/hotels, streets, railway stations, bus-stands, parks, marketplaces, under the bridges, highways, spas and abandoned areas.
The state has two FSWs per 1,000 adult women and about 88.6 per cent (pc) operate through physical hotspots such as homes or street locations. Around four per cent are exclusively linked to network operators, and 7.4 pc are found in rural villages under the Link Worker Scheme (LWS).
It has also been reported that 10 districts have FSWs in the range of 1,000 to 2,500, while 11 of them have a concentration of 500 to 1,000. Only nine districts have less than 500 FSWs.
The report states that of the 3.51 lakh MSM in the country, Karnataka has the highest number of (45,630), followed by Maharashtra (40,186) and 38,282 in Tamil Nadu.
NACO also recorded 7,209 transgenders in 717 hotspots and 175 LWS villages in Odisha. While 90.8 per cent were found at hotspots, 6.37 per cent were with 91 network operators and 2.77 per cent in LWS villages.