Resources

Amnesty International has published their research entitled "What I'm Doing is not a Crime": The Human Cost of Criminalizing Sex Work in the city of Buenos Aires Executive Summary, Argentina to accompany their Policy on State Obligations to Respect, Protect, and Fulfil the Human Rights of Sex Workers. Although sex work is not a crime in Argentina, sex workers, clients, and third parties are penalised through communication laws and anti-trafficking laws.

Amnesty International has published their research entitled "What I'm Doing is not a Crime": The Human Cost of Criminalizing Sex Work in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina to accompany their Policy on State Obligations to Respect, Protect, and Fulfil the Human Rights of Sex Workers. Although sex work is not a crime in Argentina, sex workers, clients, and third parties are penalised through communication laws and anti-trafficking laws.

The International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) and AIDS & Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) in collaboration with 11 organisation have sent this public letter entitled Exclusion of Key Populations and People Living with HIV from implementation of Programmes to The Global Fund and PEPFAR. They detail specific obstacles to running, participating in and monitoring programmes funded by these two major donors. They are gravely concerned by the exclusion and side-lining of key populations. 

Amnesty International has published their Policy on State Obligations to Respect, Protect, and Fulfil the Human Rights of Sex Workers. Amnesty International calls for the decriminalisation of all aspects of adult consensual sex work including all laws which criminalise sex workers, clients, and third parties. Amnesty International also calls for the end of the discriminatory enforcement of other laws against sex workers, such as vagrancy, loitering, and immigration requirements.

Gay Men, Transgender People and Sex Workers Outraged Over Failed Political Declaration From the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS

The Global Network of Sex Work Projects, The Global Network of Trans Women and HIV (IRGT), Global Action for Trans Equality (GATE),  and MSMGF (The Global Forum on MSM & HIV) together with the Global Platform to Fast-Track the HIV and Human Rights Responses Among Gay and Bisexual Men and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men (The Platform) are deeply disappointed by the adoption of a flawed Political Declaration today at the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS (HLM).  The Political Declaration inexcusably fails to meaningfully address the HIV epidemic among key populations, including gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men, sex workers, people who use drugs, and transgender people.

The Eastern Africa National Networks of AIDS Service Organisations (EANNASO) has published a Community Guide to the Global Fund's Key Population Action Plan 2014-2017. This guide provides an overview of who key populations are, why they are important, and what the Global Fund has planned for key populations from 2014 - 2017. The plan has five objectives to make sure key populations and their needs are included in every step of the grant cycle.

Gay men and sex workers worldwide express anger over attempts by governments to erase key populations from the 2016 UN Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS.

On May 27^th, new draft language was released for the 2016 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS, which is scheduled to be finalized in New York City next week (Wednesday, June 8 to Friday, June 10) at the United Nations. The Global Network of Sex Work Projects and MSMGF (The Global Forum on MSM & HIV) together with the Global Platform to Fast-Track the HIV and Human Rights Responses Among Gay and Bisexual Men and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men (The Platform) are deeply concerned with numerous changes made in the new draft, which erase key populations from the global HIV response.  As the final political declaration will be issued during next week’s United Nations High-level Meeting on HIV and AIDS, we urge our partners to take bold and fast actions now to influence decisions made by UN delegation members.

NSWP’s editorial in Research for Sex Work 15: Resistance and Resilience, provides an overview of sex workers’ resistance and resilience in Lyon, France from 1972 to 1975. In 1975 sex workers occupied the Saint Nizier Church in Lyon to demand their rights be respected. Their goal was to end the legal oppression of sex work and ensure sex workers’ rights are protected.

Research for Sex Work 15: Resistance and Resilience is a peer-reviewed publication for sex workers, activists, health workers, researchers, NGO staff and policy makers. It is available in English and French. All issues of Research for Sex Work can be found here. 

This Statement on the Occasion of the if the UN General Assembly 2016 High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS by the UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV & Human Rights contributes to the ongoing negotiations around the political declaration that will be adopted by the UN General Assembly on the 8-10 of June, 2016. The UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV and Human Rights offers a number of recommendations to Member States for the 2016 Political Declaration.

“If access to health care is considered a human right, who is considered human enough to have that right?” – Dr. Paul Farmer

We often say that words hold power, and as such they have to be carefully considered. On some occasions, this is truer than on others, and this is one of those occasions. World leaders, government representatives, HIV programme implementers and civil society organizations are currently preparing for the 2016 United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS. They should be focusing on the future of the AIDS response. Instead, there have been intense negotiations on which words should be used to describe the global agenda during the next 5-year period.

NSWP welcomes Amnesty International’s Policy on State Obligations to Respect, Protect, and Fulfill the Human Rights of Sex Workers. Amnesty International calls for the decriminalisation of all aspects of adult consensual sex work including all laws which criminalise sex workers, clients, and third parties. Amnesty International also calls for the end of the discriminatory enforcement of other laws against sex workers, such as vagrancy, loitering, and immigration requirements.

NSWP wishes to clarify a number of issues in the light of some recent media coverage on the subject of the decriminalisation of sex work. Several articles have appeared recently that have made some alarmist and extremely misleading statements in response to an original article in the New York Times Magazine (published 5^th May 2016).

As a sex worker-led global network with 262 member organisations across 77 countries from Africa, Asia Pacific, Caribbean, Europe, Latin America and North America, representing tens of thousands of sex workers from diverse cultures and experiences, NSWP has a fundamental right to be involved in consultations around international and national policies that impact on sex workers’ lives and work. Attempting to silence sex workers by denying our agency and calling us pimps, traffickers and industry lobbyists is unacceptable.

The sex workers’ rights movement is committed to the full decriminalisation of sex work in the belief that it will help sex workers organise to eliminate exploitation, oppression and violence and address unfair and abusive working conditions instituted by state and non-state actors. Branding the decriminalisation of third parties as an attempt to ‘legalise pimps and brothel keeping’ undermines sex workers in their struggle for labour rights and justice.

The briefing paper Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for People Who Inject Drugs: Community Voices on Pros, Cons, and Concerns outlines the results of a global consultation by the International Network of People who Use Drugs on PrEP. Approximately 75 people from 33 different countrires participated in the consultation.

This ICRSE briefing paper explores the diverse experiences and realities of LGBT sex workers and the intersection of LGBT rights and sex workers’ rights. It also calls upon the LGBT movement to build an alliance with sex workers and their organisations and actively support sex workers’ rights and the decriminalisation of sex work.

This is a Community Guide to the HIV and STI Testing and Treatment Policies briefing paper. It focuses on sex workers' experiences of HIV and STI testing and treatment programmes around the world. 

These are the final versions of the WHO technical briefs on young key populations and HIV. NSWP has also published the earlier draft versions of these papers such as the draft technical brief on HIV and young people who sell sex.

This resource outlines the targets, goals, vision and strategies of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). It recommends decriminalisation of sex work as part of an effective HIV response: "The decriminalization of sex work could prevent people from acquiring HIV through combined effects on violence, police harassment, safer work environments and HIV transmission pathways."

This articles outlines the benefits and shortcomings of German sex work laws. It also describes the danges of  forthcoming revisions to Germany's policies. This article was written by Hydra e.V. and pubished as part of Research for Sex Work 14: Sex Work is Work.

This research article explores how the sex workers’ rights movement can build solidarity with other sectors of intimate labour, specifically domestic workers, in its fight to have sex work recognised as work. The article builds upon the notion of sex work as work in the context of a labour rights movement that can change the mechanics of organising decentralised labour.