Experts Cite Prostitutes’ Role in AIDS : Health: Most are migrants to big cities from poor rural areas. Survey shows many seldom take precautions against transmission of disease.

They work out of dimly lit hotel bars, in drab beauty salons and along busy truck routes.

These workers in China’s new service economy ply the world’s oldest profession.

Many are migrants drawn from the impoverished countryside to economically vibrant cities, and health experts say they are playing a crucial role in carrying AIDS between city and village in soaring numbers.

“I came here because I don’t like the cold,” a 21-year-old woman from bleak northeastern Heilongjiang province said. She works out of a small, grimy two-chair barbershop around the corner from one of Beijing’s big tourist hotels.

“In my hometown, they’re wearing woolen long-johns already. But here, you don’t have to wear so much,” she said, pointing to her tight black top and blue jeans.

“Would you like a massage?” she said, motioning to a table separated from the chairs by a pink and yellow flower-patterned curtain. Sexual services are offered too, but place and payment have to be provided by the customer.

After making some money, the prostitutes go back home, an AIDS expert with the World Health Organization said.

According to a survey of 267 female prostitutes in police detention centers in the cities of Beijing, Dalian, Nanjing and Xian, about half came from out of town.

The 1993 survey--the first in China on AIDS and prostitutes--found that few of the women sold sex full time. They resorted to the trade to augment meager incomes or, for the nearly one-fifth unemployed, to make a little money to survive.

Most reported on average having had less than five clients, although one woman said she had had more than 100.

Tang Weihong, the Beijing Union Medical College student who conducted the survey, said two-thirds thought the risk of infection was nonexistent or only slight. Nearly half never used condoms, although they are readily available, and an additional 30% used them seldom or sometimes.

“The great majority see AIDS as a foreigners’ disease; China doesn’t have it and it’s got nothing to do with them,” Tang’s report said.