Police used to take possession of condoms as evidence to arrest a suspected sex worker or customer. However, that rule has been changed in Yuxi as part of a trial project to better coordinate the work of CDC officials and public security bureaus in AIDS prevention.

"Reaching out to (sex workers) with safe sex education and free condoms is important and benefits China's overall battle against HIV and AIDS," said Lu Lin, director of Yunnan's provincial CDC.

Official studies show the prevalence of HIV and AIDS among prostitutes is about 1 percent (compared to 0.05 percent for the general public). In Hongta, though, that percentage has fallen from 2 percent to 0.7 percent since the project started.

Lu said the model will gradually be expanded to surrounding counties.

Hao Yang, deputy director of the disease prevention and control bureau under the Ministry of Health, said it is unlikely the project will be rolled out nationwide in the short term, however. "Due to policy and legal restraints, it's hard to expand the model across the country," he said. "But that doesn't mean we should stop trying."

In the clubs

Nightclubs are hotspots for sex workers, although most refused to even admit they employed them when first approached by the CDC, said Li Jinlin.

Meidong works as a so-called "bar girl" at Yedu, a glitzy new club in Hongta where young women dressed in yellow miniskirts greet customers at the door. She is a key contact for the district CDC and helps to organize more than 60 women for awareness meetings and free health checks.

"We select those sex workers who are more eloquent and educated to help (us to reach) more women," explained Li Jinlin, who said several leading members of this grassroots group left the city during recent crackdowns.

At Yedu, Meidong introduced two of her colleagues to China Daily.

"I'm a freelancer," said Liu Ping, a 25-year-old college graduate from Yibin in Sichuan province. "I make 200 yuan ($30) for every client and give 20 yuan to the club. It's reasonable. Some nightclubs charge 50 yuan."

When she was asked if she would have sex with a client without a condom, she replied: "Of course not. That would be reckless."

Next to her, Zhang Lifang, 24, said she only offers to have a drink with her clients, not sex. The shy girl from the nearby city of Qujing added: "I know drinking alcohol from the same glass as a client is unsanitary but I won't get infected with HIV doing it."

Workers from the CDC have become familiar faces in clubs and "hair salons". The first step is speaking in a language sex workers are comfortable with. Simply put, "we can't be shy about it", said Hongta deputy director Ma Yi.

However, the recent crackdowns have made prostitutes and their pimps less willing to talk.

Compared with the stark setting of Yedu, "hair salons" are often more shabby in appearance and more secretive. CDC workers usually have to go undercover before they can talk to the women about safe sex and HIV prevention.

At a "massage parlor" China Daily reporters visited with Ma, a 19-year-old woman offered Ma the chance to "date" her for 100 yuan. He immediately told the storeowner, Li Aihong, that he was from the CDC.

"No wonder you look so familiar. I've seen you at the meetings," replied Li Aihong, lifting her head only briefly from her cross-stitching. "These two girls just came to work for me last week."

Although unwilling to give her name, the 19-year-old agreed to talk about HIV, explaining that all she knows "is that people can die from it".

When asked about how the virus is transmitted, she pointed at China Daily's male photographer as he was taking pictures and said: "I could get it from him." She then laughed and pulled a blanket over her head, too embarrassed to continue.

Ghost town

Hulu, a residential community bordering the city's urban and rural suburbs that has a reputation as a red light district, had more than 70 "hair salons" and "massage parlors" before the last crackdown.

Today, it is like a ghost town, with darkened shopping units and empty street-side food stalls. At 9 pm, usually the peak business hour for parlors and salons, most buildings were shuttered, with rental signs and phone numbers posted outside.

"I put the 'for rent' sign out two months ago but I've only had two people call to inquire," said landlord Chang Li, 34, as she played mahjong outside one block. "It used to be easy to rent out these apartments."

Chang said she did not rent to sex workers because the house is "near an elementary school", with the only exception being a young woman who "worked on the other side of the community" and had a child.

Most landlords in Hulu are farmers who bought the four-story buildings with the compensation they received for their land, which was swallowed up in the city expansion. Chang makes 14,000 yuan a year from her apartments.

As more than 300 sex workers rent homes here, both Hongta's CDC and Women's Federation have forged links with the landlords to help notify women of regular educational programs.

"We provide the platform, CDC provides the training," said He Liqiong, president of Hongta Women's Federation. "It used to be that prostitutes simply solicited on street corners in the city, but now they've moved into apartments and live together in this community."

He said helping sex workers with AIDS prevention is a way to protect women's rights.

"Experience has proven beyond a doubt that the most effective responses to HIV are those which protect the rights of those living with HIV and those who are most vulnerable to infection," Michael Kirby, a renowned AIDS activist and former Australian High Court Justice, said during an anti-discrimination event in Beijing in July.

"If we treat these individuals as criminals, we drive them underground, out of reach of prevention, treatment and care," he added.

Now that most "hair salons" have been closed down and sex workers have left the community, landlords complain their incomes have been severely affected.

He at the Women's Federation said the next plan is for the city government to transform Hulu into a commercial district.

In fact, work has already started. One former "hair salon" that employed more than 20 women is now a hotpot restaurant.

Guo Anfei in Kunming contributed to this story.

Names of the sex workers in this story have been changed.