Resources

The meeting was organised by Different Avenues, Women of Colour United and Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), and was held at OSI in Washington, D.C. OSI commissioned the analysis of U.S. immigration law and review of the grounds for inadmissibility to inform conversations about a waiver process for sex workers, people who use drugs and those with criminal convictions to attend the 2012 AIDS conference that is planned to be held in the U.S..

This document is a collection of fact sheets discussing the reasons for and effects of decriminalisation of sex work worldwide, including health, safety, worker's rights, children's rights, public health, economics, and women's rights.

Research for Sex Work 10: Sex Workers' Rights is a peer-reviewed publication for sex workers, activists, health workers, researchers, NGO staff and policy makers. It is available in English and Spanish. All issues of Research for Sex Work can be found here.

Research for Sex Work 8: Sex Work and Law Enforcement is a peer-reviewed publication for sex workers, activists, health workers, researchers, NGO staff and policy makers. It is available in English. All issues of Research for Sex Work can be found here.

Research for Sex Work 7: Ethics in Healthcare and Research is a peer-reviewed publication for sex workers, activists, health workers, researchers, NGO staff and policy makers. It is available in English. All issues of Research for Sex Work can be found here.

Research for Sex Work 6: Sex Work and Human Rights is a peer-reviewed publication for sex workers, activists, health workers, researchers, NGO staff and policy makers. It is available in English. All issues of Research for Sex Work can be found here.

Research for Sex Work 5: Health, HIV and Sex Work - the Influence of Migration and Mobility is a peer-reviewed publication for sex workers, activists, health workers, researchers, NGO staff and policy makers. It is available in English. All issues of Research for Sex Work can be found here.

Research for Sex Work 3: Empowerment is a peer-reviewed publication for sex workers, activists, health workers, researchers, NGO staff and policy makers. It is available in English. All issues of Research for Sex Work can be found here.

ALL ISSUES OF RESEARCH FOR SEX WORK CAN BE FOUND HERE.

Table of Contents:

Appropriate health services for sex workers - I. Wolffers (Vrije Universiteit) 1

“There aren’t even any written materials in the clinic to read” - R. Montgomery
(AIDS infoshare) 3

Starting to work with sex workers in Cambodia: The need for context - C. Khus 5

HIV/AIDS interventions for street-based sex workers in Dhaka City - M. Bloem 7

Migrant sex workers in Europe - L. Brussa (TAMPEP) 8

Research for Sex Work 6: Sex Work and Human Rights is a peer-reviewed publication for sex workers, activists, health workers, researchers, NGO staff and policy makers. It is available in English. All issues of Research for Sex Work can be found here.

This paper critically examines the current strategies employed by both governmental and non-governmental agencies (NGO's) to address the issue, focusing on their impact on the women affected. The guidiing principle is that anti-trafficking instruments should not only be in line with the protection of human rights, but should also care not to create or exacerbate existing situations that cuase or contribute to trafficking by instituting policies and practices that further undermine the rights of the concerned groups, in particular women.

As mulheres profissionais do sexo (mps), usualmente denominadas como prostitutas, têm ocupado um lugar marginal e de destaque ao longo da história da humanidade (Roberts, 1998). Na história da prostituição, o que se vê é um ininterrupto esforço, bem sucedido, de controle e ao mesmo tempo exploração da prostituição, ora por parte do Estado, ora por parte da Igreja, ou ambos (Roberts, 1998). Ao colocá-las à margem e, sempre que possível, segregar as mps através de confinamento em casas, a intenção expressa pelos que assim agiam, era de colaborar para a proteção da família. Até recentemente, a maior parte dos programas de intervenção em saúde tratou as profissionais do sexo como potenciais vetores de doenças, especialmente da Aids, com ameaça à saúde dos homens e à segurança da família (MUSA, 2000). Este enfoque foi se deslocando e, atualmente, pelo menos em alguns programas, ele se volta para os riscos à que estão expostas essas mulheres, entre outros, os ocasionados por aqueles clientes que recusam o uso da camisinha, muitas vezes por meio de atitudes violentas.

This article focuses on the existing legal approaches to prostitution, the moral and ideological presumptions underlying the different legislative models and their impact on the working and living conditions of women and men working in the sex industry. It will also touch on the current debate on sex work, including the views of sexworkers themselves. Basically, four different legal regimes can be discerned - prohibitionist, abolitionist, regulamentarist, and labour approaches.

This paper tries to give an impetus to further explore the meaning of a human rights based approach in the field of trafficking.

Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, on trafficking in women, women's migration and violence against women, submitted in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 1997/44.

You can download this 38 page PDF resource above. This resource is in English.

Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights
and Human Trafficking
Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights to the Economic and Social Council.

You can download this 16 page PDF resource above. This resource is in English.

The Annotated Guide to the new UN Trafficking Protocol is a tool to assist advocates in the development of a human rights framework for national anti-trafficking laws and policies. In December 2000, the UN adopted international instruments to fight transnational organized crime and additional agreements or protocols to combat trafficking in persons, smuggling and firearms.

Innocence and Purity Vs. Deviance and Immorality: The Spaces of Prostitution in Nepal and Canada

This paper adopts a critical feminist analysis in examining the way in which social and physical spaces operate to maintain race, class, and gender hierarchies in relation to prostitution. Critiquing the dominant anti-trafficking discourse that essentialises all 'third world" women as victims, the author problematises the construction of Badi women in Western Nepal as 'traditional prostitutes' and Aboriginal women in Canada as 'easy squaws'. This analysis demonstrates how in reproducing false divisions between 'virgins' and 'whores', and between the 'first' and 'third' worlds, material, symbolic, and discursive processes work to normalise unequal relations of power.

This article explores the implications of an amendment to H.R. 1298, the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDs, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act, seeks to deny U.S. funding to organizations that do not have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution.

The global flow of money, goods, culture and ideas has been accompanied by a global flow of people. Yet, with increasing migration levels, also various exploitative and abusive forms of migration have become more prevalent. Attention for the topic of trafficking in migrants has found so far most resonance within human rights organizations, numerous non-governmental and international organizations, bodies and lobby networks, as well as in sensationalist media.