YEREVAN. – Sexual diseases are diagnosed every year among sixty percent of Armenia’s prostitutes, Polyclinic Head Gurgen Porsughyan of the Medical Center for Dermatology and Sexually Transmitted Diseases stated during a press conference on Saturday. 

He noted that, as a result of the checkups conducted at the Center, 2-3 HIV/AIDS cases are reported among prostitutes on a yearly basis. “Today we register cases of chronic disease,” he said noting, however, that sexually transmitted disease-related deaths among prostitutes are not recorded in Armenia to this day.

Incidentally, now the prostitutes will have to pay for their medical checkup and treatment at the aforesaid center. “Prostitution is a business, a source of income for a person who sells her [or his] body. Why should she [or he] not use some of that money for her [or his] health? The state is not obligated to examine her [or him]. So, the new decisions are somewhat correct,” Porsughyan stated.     

Also, the physician is of the opinion that prostitution should not be legalized in Armenia. “It is inappropriate for our nation; it is an antisocial phenomenon, albeit the prostitutes are working very successfully in Armenia,” he noted.   

Gurgen Porsughyan is convinced that if brothels were to be established in Armenia, no prostitute would go there to work because all of them either conceal or wish to conceal what they are doing. So, “legalization will not help.”  

As per the physician, it should be made sure that this profession would not cause health risks. “The primary prevention [from sexually transmitted diseases] is the use of condoms. Each and every prostitute [in Armenia] carries condoms, [but] it’s altogether another issue when the client demands sexual intercourse without a condom,” Gurgen Porsughyan added.