The UNAIDS Pacific Office in partnership with Fiji’s Ministry of Health submitted a request for proposals to external researchers to conduct a population size estimate and IBBS among sex workers in Fiji. The proposal from the research team in New Zealand was accepted and forms the basis for the research presented in this report. The overall aim of this research was to address knowledge gaps around HIV and STI prevalence and understand levels of safer sex knowledge and behaviour among sex workers, a group identified as high risk.1 To achieve these research goals, an estimation of the size of the population of sex workers in Fiji was carried out together with an Integrated Biological and Behavioural Surveillance Survey (IBBS).
This research was an extension of an initial research proposal developed by the Survival Advocacy Network (SAN Fiji),2 a network of past and present sex workers in Fiji. SAN Fiji thus became core members of the research team, participating in the development of an appropriate research methodology and the successful collection and interpretation of research data.