Press Release: NSWP+ Launch

Source
NSWP
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Year
2013

Press Release

2nd June 2013

NSWP+ launched to fight for the rights of positive sex workers

June 2nd marked International Sex Workers’ Day. NSWP celebrated this important day by officially launching the NSWP+ platform through a new website: http://www.nswp.org/nswp-plus

NSWP+ is a platform for HIV positive sex workers and people committed to treatment access and equal rights for sex workers living with HIV. The platform was established during the Sex Worker Freedom Festival in Kolkata, India when a group of positive sex workers came together to demand recognition that in relation to HIV: ‘sex workers are not the problem, but part of the solution’. Other NSWP+ demands include:

  • HIV+ sex workers demand better and affordable HIV drugs
  • As positive people, we demand the right to work as sex workers
  • We demand the right to work in all sectors, including any sector of the sex industry
  • We demand that the drug companies in the West stop trying to kill us through their attacks on developing countries’ rights to manufacture, export and import generic ARVs
  • As HIV+ sex workers, we face multiple layers of stigma and discrimination. Despite 25 years of treatment activism, sex workers’ voices are still excluded from this movement
  • We demand not to be last in line for treatment or refused treatment because we are sex workers
  • Treatment must be matched to the patient and not the patient matched to available drugs
  • We demand more information about living positively and information on how to join in the campaign against Free Trade Agreements
  •  AS HIV+ SEX WORKERS, WE DEMAND THE RIGHT TO LOOK FABULOUS!!!

The NSWP+ website will collate and publish news and resources of particular relevance to sex workers living with HIV and others with an interest in the involvement of positive sex workers in the global HIV response. A global advisory group of positive sex workers is being established to inform the NSWP+ advocacy agenda. Sex workers living with HIV must be at the forefront of policy and debate around HIV and sex work and NSWP+ aims to share these voices and experiences into national, regional and international advocacy forums.