Their husbands dead or missing, more women are being forced to turn to survival sex as family breadwinners in Sri Lanka' northern former war zone. According to estimates by local groups working with women to boost their incomes, the number of women engaged in sex work is said to be as many as 7,000, considered by some as a conservative estimate. Vishaka Dharmadasa, head of the Association of War Affected Women, an NGO based in Kandy (Central Province) that has programming in the north on livelihood and public health, told IRIN: "This was a new finding during a [local] household survey on women-headed households and livelihood requirements. They are under immense pressure to provide for families in homes where men are either dead or reported missing. It has made a sizeable percentage of women to reluctantly turn to sex work." The government estimates there were over 59,000 women-headed households in the island's north in 2012. "They bear economic burdens once carried by their fathers, husbands or brothers. Poverty and lack of options are driving women to adopt commercial sex as an income generator," Dharmadasa added. She told IRIN the