XV^th International AIDS Conference
Bangkok, Thailand, 8-16 July 2004

Introduction

This report aims to inform members of NSWP, partners, agencies and those interested about the activities for and from sex workers during the XV International AIDS Conference, July 2004 in Bangkok. We believe that this was an historic opportunity for sex workers to express ourselves and promote more visibility, particularly to individuals and organizations from Asia. All pictures were made by sex workers' organizations or individuals. This report was prepared by Paulo Longo and reviewed by Andrew Hunter.

Pre-Conference Activities

Conference Scholarships

As usual NSWP got messages and letters from sex workers who applied for scholarships and didn't get one. The action, in this case, was to contact conference organizers to explain the situation and DEMAND financial support to those who wanted to attend. It worked in some cases, mainly for delegates from developing countries, including a delegation of eight people from Sonagachi Project (India), Elena Reynaga, from the Latin-Caribbean Network and Gabriela Leite, from the Brazilian Network. In most cases people only got free registrations and had to find other ways to cover their travel and other expenses. Alternatives were found by some NSWP members, who registered as media or exhibition.

Scientific Committee to Review Abstracts

Paulo Longo, coordinator of NSWP participated for the sixth year in the Scientific Committee to Review Abstracts. Although sex work is the area of expertise, abstracts about men who have sex with men, people in prisons and children were also reviewed. Many abstracts about sex work were really bad, with lots of useless seroprevalence studies, though some were very interesting.

Cultural Program

Empower sent the cultural program to be reviewed and it was forwarded to the NSWP email list for comments. Andrew Hunter, from the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW), actively participated in the cultural program together with Empower and other Asian organizations. Organizations from Australia, Canada, Bangladesh and other Asian countries organized performances and other artistic activities.

NSWP Booth

Applying to have a booth was another difficult negotiation. Again, it is the same in every conference: a very bureaucratic application for booths, where organizations have to prove their ability to run a booth, explain their objectives, list their previous experiences and explain why they can not pay US$10,000! NSWP did manage to get a booth again, as well as APNSW, Empower and PASST (France). We had four booths of sex workers' organizations this year! The NSWP booth was, as always, very popular; we had several visits, pictures and interviews. The group of sex workers from Sonagachi brought materials to sell and made a good profit for the project in Kalkota. Elena and Gabriela brought publications and posters from Latin America, some in Portuguese, some in Spanish, that were also very popular.

Bangkok A-Go-Go Bar

One innovation of the 2004 International AIDS Conference was to have the Global Village, a huge exhibition hall that was open to the public. Here there were community lounges, stalls and a market were people from Thailand could sell their products — food, handcraft, paintings, sculptures. In this area, a big stage had several performances, concerts and theatre presentations, as well as two bars: the Latino bar (very popular for their very good and cheap tequila!) and the Bangkok A-Go-Go Bar, organized by Empower. APNSW and NSWP helped in organizing the bar, some people brought cheap liquor from the duty-free.

On the second day, after the Go-Go Bar received lots of publicity in Asian media, the government and media called for the bar to be closed because it was "offending the public," and giving the wrong image of Thailand to the international delegates and media. The organizers took care that no explicit sex performances were held at the bar. The girls working there were wearing aprons with bikinis sewn on them. No one was naked. The "offensive acts" were some demonstrations about condom use that are done for children in any public school. After several protests and negotiations with the police and conference organizers, the bar remained open until the end of the conference.

Non-Abstract Session

NSWP contacted the conference organizers and scientific program to protest against the planned structure of debate for the sex work non-abstract session. It was announced that Dr. Donna Hughes, a well-known anti-sex work American, would be invited to present her argument against working with sex workers and reforming sex-work-related laws and policies. All conference organizers from the Chair to the International Networks were contacted, and it was made very clear that the NSWP would not accept this. The reaction was very positive and most of the international activists publicly supported us. Finally, NSWP organized and chaired (Paulo Longo and Carol Jenkins) the session, which was given the name "Sex Workers: Part of the Solution." Gabriela Leite (Brazilian Network) and Elena Reynaga (Latin American Network) were invited to speak.

One barrier posed by the scientific committee representative was that neither Gabriela or Elena could speak English. We immediately removed this barrier. Paulo Longo volunteered to translate from Portuguese and Spanish. It was a very emotional moment, as it was the first time leaders from Latin America could speak in an international conference in their own language. Other speakers were Khartini Slamah, Chair of NSWP (Malaysia), Camile Cabral, PASST (France) and Jayne Arnot, SWEAT (South Africa). At the end of the session there was a big queue of people with questions and comments. Unfortunately due to time constraints the chairs had to close the session.

Other Scientific Program Activities

Session "Two to tango: buyers and sellers in commercial sex"

Paulo Longo and Jayne Arnot chaired this oral abstract session with presentations from different parts of the world. The abstracts are available on the conference website, www.aids2004.org.

UNAIDS Session

UNAIDS organized a session named "Sex Work and AIDS: a matter of public health and public policy." Chaired by Senator Mechai from Thailand, speakers included Noi Apsuk from Empower, and Paulo Longo and Dr. Jana from NSWP. The main issues addressed included the policies sex workers need. It was also a good opportunity to share positive experiences. The representative from the Thai Government presented some controversial examples of Thai government policy and was strongly criticized by the other speakers as well as by the audience.

Making Sex Work Safe Asia Pacific

The International AIDS Conference was the perfect opportunity to launch the new Asia Pacific version of Making Sex Work Safe, the most successful NSWP publication to date. The first version of Making Sex Work Safe, (in English) was published in 1997. the Spanish version was published in 2000. A French version will be published in early 2005, and a Russian version is being planned for the same year. This skills-building workshop was considered very useful by the participants (see Appendix A for feedback). The workshop contained several practical examples that use culture and art to promote health among sex workers. An updated version of Making Sex Work Safe Asia Pacific will soon be available on-line at at www.apnsw.org, the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW) website.

Community Forum and Global Village

Several activities happened at the Community Forum and Global Village including the Bangkok A-Go-Go Bar. Some of the most important events included presentations from sex workers and sex work organizations attending the conference, a sex workers' meeting where issues and realitites from different regions and countries were exposed and an APNSW workshop to plan future activities and elect a board.

Other Sessions

A schedule of sex work sessions and other sessions of interest was provided by APNSW and Empower which was distributed to participants and made available at the booths. (See MS Word Docs: SWPROGRAM.DOC and BKKSESSIONS.DOC.)

Demonstrations and Political Actions

Press Conference

Empower organized a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Bangkok. There were four speakers from different organizations including activists and a representative from OXFAM, a donor agency. Sex workers were represented by the coordinator of NSWP, Paulo Longo. A group of 15 sex workers from different parts of the world attended and some reports were published in the Thai and other Asian media.

Cultural Activities and Performances

Several cultural activities and performances were presented by sex workers' organizations, including Stella from Canada, Scarlet Alliance from Australia and Bandhu from Bangladesh. Please see photos of these performances.

Demonstrations

Sex workers joined most demonstrations at the conference, but one very important achievement stands out – the protest against Gilead, a pharmaceutical company doing assays among sex workers in Cambodia. The protest resulted in several discussions held in Cambodia, involving the Prime Minister. The Cambodian Government has since stopped the study. In Cambodia human rights are constantly being abused. We consider this as a strong victory. See the news report from AIDSMAP: Cambodian study of tenofovir for HIV prevention halted, PM cites 'human rights'.

Closing Speech

At the closing ceremony a sex worker, Porn from Empower, Chiang Mai, was an invited speaker. She summed up the main issues affecting sex workers that were discussed at the Community Forum and read it in poetry:

"When I can work in safe and fair conditions.
When I am free of discrimination.
When I am free of labels like 'immoral" or "victim".
When I am free from unethical researchers.
When I am free to do my job without harassment, violence or breaking the law.
When sex work is recognized as work.
When we have safety, unity, respect and our rights.
When I am free to choose my own way.
THEN I am free to protect myself and others from HIV."
— Porn and Liz/ Empower

Appendix A

Feedback from a participant at the Making Sex Work Safe Skills-Building Workshop

"At the Bangkok conference I went to the Making Sex Work Safe skills-building workshop. It was fabulous. Not much skills-building went on, but with about 100 people in the room for two hours what could we really have done? It was more the people there really — very lively experience-sharing — we broke out into three small groups, I was in one facilitated by a couple of Debbies (Aussie sex worker performance artists), there were a couple of Japanese sex worker girls there, Zi Teng from Hong Kong, a transgender sex worker from Delhi, Paulo Longo, excellent really. Cheers!"
— A participant from China