Here is a quick look at what this is all about, why you should care and how you can get involved.

What is the UNAIDS Guidance Note on HIV and Sex Work?

UNAIDS is the United Nations programme responsible for leading and coordinating the UN response to preventing and treating HIV globally. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is responsible for HIV and Sex Work. (The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime is responsible for HIV and Trafficking.)

The "guidance note" tells UN agencies how to deal with the issue of HIV and Sex Work and gives direction for the types of projects and work that UNAIDS, UNFPA and other UN Agencies intend to support and fund.

Why should I care what UNAIDS says about HIV and Sex Work?

Sex workers everywhere need their human rights to be respected and protected by international bodies such as UNAIDS and national governments. In many places in the world, male, female and transgender sex workers are disproportionately affected by the HIV pandemic. This is in no small part due to a lack of respect for our human and labour rights. Sex workers in many places need better access to HIV prevention materials (like condom and lube), information, support and access to treatment.

Guidance put out by UNAIDS influence other UN agencies, national governments and major funders — it can either help sex workers (and our clients) or it can make it even harder for sex workers if they are bad. UN programmes affect sex workers in many countries ... maybe even your own.

Why is it so bad?

The influence of the American and Swedish anti-prostitution perspectives is clear all through the document, which adopts a restrictive gender inequality analysis which ignores male and transgender sex workers and the complexity of the current world economic order. The guidance is divided into 3 'Pillars':

1st Pillar	focuses on the need to prevent 'women' and young people entering sex work and reducing demand for paid sex.
2nd Pillar	focuses on reducing vulnerability to HIV, but views reducing client numbers and getting 'women' out of sex work as major HIV prevention strategies.
3rd Pillar	focuses on need to get 'women' out of sex work and the need to destigmatise sex workers so that they can leave sex work and be accepted by communities and families.

It reduces sex workers to targets for interventions, and ignores the critical and beneficial role of sex workers organisations and networks.

Many sex workers fear that this abolitionist emphasis will mean support for criminalising clients and more police raids on sex work establishments as is happening already in many countries.

So, basically, it is a minestrone of some of the most repressive approaches to sex work and HIV, ones that do little to empower sex worker to protect themselves but instead stigmatise sex work more and make working conditions even worse.

How was it stopped?

Members of the Asia-Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW) drafted a document 'Sex Workers Respond' that talked about how our voices were totally ignored in the Guidance Note. Importantly it also outlined how the guidance breached a number of UN Human Rights treaties and other UNAIDS policies. The document was signed by APNSW, NSWP and ICRSE.

Sex worker groups in Brazil, Australia and a number of other countries pressured their governments who sit on the UNAIDS PCB to support sex workers and block the Guidance Note. Others contacted the NGO representatives for their region and asked that they do the same. Importantly UNESCO, one of the co-sponsors of UNAIDS, refused to sign the document.

'Sex Workers Respond' was presented at the PCB in June 07, through support from ICASO, International Council of Aids Service Organizations and the International Women's Health Coalition.

The PCB after much heated debate recommended "UNAIDS to continue consultation with relevant stakeholders, including affected groups, in developing this guidance." This in effect turned the "Guidance Note" from a UN approved policy back into a draft document that needs further work.

What next?

After the rejection of the UNAIDS Guidance Note on HIV and Sex Work in June by the PCB [the UNAIDS governing body] an 'Expert Group on UN HIV and Sex Work Policy' was formed by the NSWP to try and draft a revised document that can still be accepted by UNAIDS as a 'Guidance Note'. The document is being drafted in line with representations already made to UN Agencies by the sex workers rights movement globally; however, it is not meant to be a global sex workers manifesto. The group is still working on the document, but it will be presented to UNAIDS, UNFPA and other UN agencies by the Indian Network of Sex Workers in Delhi in mid-September.

What can you do?

It is important for sex workers to stand together! Your voice is critical to this effort. NSWP is soliciting input from sex workers from all regions, in particular Latin America and Africa. Send your reactions and slogans and questions to rights @ nswp dot org before September 14!