Resources

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.

Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) created this document as a way to provide context for the sex worker rights movement by sharing the life stories of sex workers with others, in their own words, allowing them to share their dreams and experiences with others to help them better understand sex workers, and to help other sex workers find the value and power in their own experiences. Chapters include stories of sex workers, a guide to risk management tips for sex workers to have safer work lives, and a sex workers pledge.

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.

This paper summarises and reports on research involving documenting womens labour migration and occurances of trafficking, focusing on women in Bangladesh, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Kuwait.

The subject of The Politics of Prostitution is not really prostitution politics. Instead, the research collected here seeks to answer the questions ‘Do women’s policy agencies matter?’ and ‘Is there such a thing as state feminism?’ The Research Network on Gender Politics and the State (RNGS) has been studying these questions since 1995 in ‘Western political democracies’; prostitution is only one of five issues which members have used to measure the impact of women’s movements for equality. By the term ‘women’s movements’, the researchers mean a range of organisations and groups, both grassroots and formal, which may or may not self-identify as feminist. By ‘women’s policy agencies’, they refer to government institutions which exist to advance women’s status in society. These definitions are key to appreciating the book.

This resource looks at Raymond's 'ten reasons' and discusses why each reason is poorly thought out, or missing crucial information.

You can download this seven page PDF resource above.

This resource is in English.

The Global Network of Sex Work Projects raises the voices of sex workers of all genders on issues that affect us. What these voices say about HIV is: SEX WORK IS WORK: Only rights can stop the wrongs. Unfavourable laws, stigma, violence, and discrimination cause sex workers’ vulnerability to ill health, social exclusion and human rights violations. Sex workers face these to varying degrees in all cultures from Switzerland to Swaziland, Canada to Cambodia. In this pamphlet, we define an understanding of HIV and sex work and outline our global agenda for change. We hope you will join and support us.

This is the English version of the Note for Record of the November 2009 UNAIDS Advisory Group on HIV and Sex Work

This document details the events of the group meeting, including:

This list of discussion points was prepared for use during a meeting with Michel Sidibe, and include communication of general principles of collaboration as well as recommendations for the creation of an UNAIDS working group on HIV & sex work be created, that HIV prevention & care among sex workers be re-categorized away from the violence against women priority area, and that changes in how sex work is addressed be considered.