News Archive: 四月 2012

Sex workers ran a number of exciting and challenging sessions during the AWID Forum in Istanbul. In their interactions with delegates they have been stressing the importance of listening to sex workers and acknowledging sex work as work. There has also been a plea for the silent majority of feminists who support sex workers rights to raise their voices to condemn interventions like anti-trafficking raid and rescues which are often carried out in the name of feminism.

One well attended break out session that combined presentations with film clips was ‘Don’t talk to us about sewing machines: Talk to us about worker’s rights’ which was organised by the Paulo Longo Research Initiative. The panel was moderated by Meena Seshu of Sangram and Laura Agustín and Sachumi Mayeo of Empower spoke.

Watch the videos of this session (with thanks to APNSW): 

Video courtesy of Dale at APNSW.

Watch this video in China here.  在这里观看这个视频在中国 

Read the speech in Chinese here.  中国在这里读的讲话 

También puede leer el discurso aquí en español. You can also read the speech in Spanish here.

The Association of Women in Development Forum is currently taking place in Turkey. In a speech of quiet intensity Kaythi Win delivered a plenary that got 80% of the 2000 feminists in the audience on their feet in support of sex workers rights.  Her speech in full follows.

Carol Leigh, director of the Bay Area Sex Workers Advocacy Network, explains why sex workers deserve legal rights in this article in the New York Times.

PROS Network (Providers and Resources Offering Services to sex workers) participated in two studies in New York around the impact of policies that use of condoms as ‘evidence of prostitution’.

NSWP and ASWA member, Health Options for Young Men on HIV, AIDS and STIs, based in Kenya, has been awarded a grant to train its members to be peer educators and undertake outreach through social media.

The award from amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, will provide sex workers living with HIV with HIV prevention and treatment information. Those trained will, in turn, will pass that knowledge on to other sex workers. Additionally, HOYMAS is working with the Kenyan government to improve public policies related to HIV among male sex workers.

UNFPA Africa’s website features this story marking the launch of this resource, which can be found in our resources section here.

Source: Extract from the full story on the UNFPA Africa website.

Sex workers are a critical aspect of Namibia’s plans to tackle HIV and AIDS. However, up until 2011 little was known about their needs and challenges and nor were there national guidelines for effective, rights-based programming with sex workers. A series of rapid assessments on sex work and HIV was conducted by sex workers with the support of UNFPA and UNAIDS Namibia and the Society for Family Health (SFH). This was implemented as part of UNAIDS’ programme acceleration funding (PAF) award to UNFPA Namibia.

X:Talk have launched a campaign for a moratorium on sex worker arrests during the Olympics.

They are seeking a moratorium – a suspension of legal powers – on arrests of sex workers before and up to the end of the London Olympics. 

'Governments and NGOs draw a link between sporting events and increase in trafficking, but there is no proven link.  We ask for a moratorium because the usual response by governments to those assumptions is to crack down on sex workers. Up to now, anti-trafficking measures have mainly been about making criminal law interventions. But raids on brothels, for example, find that the number of people trafficked is nowhere near as many as thought.'

Read x:talk briefing paper here and and SIGN UP to their campaign by emailing xtalk.knowledge@gmail.com 

Press Release from: English Collective of Prostitutes

As arrests, raids and prosecutions of sex workers increase in Olympic boroughs and throughout the UK, calls for the decriminalisation of prostitution highlight the need to protect sex workers from rape and violence.

In response to the recent article in the Hindu where renowned feminist and journalist Gloria Steinem talked of an ‘epidemic of sex trafficking’, Professor Shohini Ghosh writes:

The ongoing ‘sex-trafficking’ controversy surrounding Village Voice Media-owned Backpage.com (a website where escorts can advertise their services) continues. 

Ann Jordan's Issue Paper from Rightswork.org examines the impact of the Swedish Penal Code from 1999. 

Three new resources have been published by UNFPA / UNAIDS, in partnership with ASWA and The Society for Family Health, on sex worker rights and HIV in Namibia and are now available in our 'Resources' section (or just click on the name of the document below.)

Many people will have been following the developing news stories about New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who attacks the sex industry and promotes a 'rescue and rehabiitation' approach.