In 2013, UNFPA published ‘Implementing Comprehensive HIV/STI Programmes with Sex Workers: Practical Approaches from Collaborative Interventions’ or the SWIT. The resource was authored by the World Health Organization, in collaboration with UNFPA, UNAIDS, UNDP, NSWP and the World Bank. It is a comprehensive global tool aiming to offer guidance on how to implement the WHO’s 2012 recommendations on HIV and Sex Work. It emphasises the importance of implementation at a grassroots level, led by local sex workers and local sex working collectives, as well as highlighting the importance of sex workers influencing HIV policy at national and international levels, through sex worker-led networks. It also calls for an end to the practice of law enforcement officials using condoms as evidence of sex work.
The document affirms that the health of sex workers doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and that countries should work towards the decriminalisation of sex work, and the empowerment and self-determination of sex working communities, as a fundamental part of the fight against HIV.
Topics covered include:
- The principles that have to underlie effective HIV programming, namely sex worker-led communities implementing sex work-designed programmes; what sex worker-led means in practise and how to facilitate the formation of strong sex worker-led organisations;
- Addressing violence against sex workers;
- How to implement recommended condom and lubricant programming, and other healthcare interventions for HIV prevention, treatment and care;
- How to manage programmes and build the capacity of sex worker-led organisations
You can access the various language versions by following the links below.
Thanks to PJ Starr who supplied the image featured on the cover of this document.