Resources

This joint briefing paper by NSWP and INPUD highlights the specific needs and rights of sex workers who use drugs, as a community that spans two key populations. This document provides an overview of some of the most endemic and substantive ways in which sex workers who use drugs face double criminalisation and associated police harassment, intersectional stigma, compounded marginalisation and social exclusion, heightened interference and harassment from healthcare and other service providers, infantilisation, pathologisation, and an associated undermining of agency, choice, and self-determination. A Community Guide is also available.

NSWP, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects, emphatically condemns the actions of the USA’s Department of Homeland Security and federal prosecutors in New York for the raid on the offices of Rentboy.com and the arrests of seven of its staff members.

The Smart Sex Worker’s Guide to SWIT provides a short summary of the key points in Sex Worker Implemetation Tool (SWIT). The Sex Worker Implementation Tool (SWIT) offers practical guidance on effective HIV and STI programming for sex workers. It provides evidence for the necessity of decriminalisation of sex work, the involvement of sex workers in developing policy, and the empowerment and self-determination of sex work communities as a fundamental part of the fight against HIV. This resource is based on the WHO, UNFPA, UNAIDS and NSWP 2012 recommendations on HIV and Sex Work. The guide can be used by sex workers and sex worker organisations who are designing or running programmes for sex workers. It may also be useful as an advocacy tool when advocating for rights-based services.

The Smart Sex Worker's Guide to The Global Fund is aimed at sex workers as a quick reference guide to help sex workers understand the Global Fund and its complex structures. The guide is helpful to sex worker organisations who are already receiving funding from the Global Fund as well as to those who hope to receive funding from the Fund in the future.

The Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) would like to take this opportunity to express our support for Amnesty International’s Resolution and draft policy calling for the decriminalisation of sex work, tabled for adoption at the International Council Meeting, 6-11th August 2015. This draft policy is backed up by the findings of country-based research carried out by Amnesty International on the human rights impact of the criminalisation of sex work, and also on the consultation in 2014, which included input from many sex workers around the world – the community most affected by the proposals.

NSWP would also like to condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the CATW statement, open letter and online petition attacking Amnesty International's proposals. CATW’s position is stigmatising, discriminatory and misrepresents the facts, conflating sex work with human trafficking. Most importantly it ignores the lived experiences of sex workers, silences their voices and seeks to perpetuate legal systems which place sex workers at increased risk of violence, stigmatisation, and discrimination; as well as limiting their access to health and social services. Furthermore, CATW is ignoring the overwhelming body of evidence and the findings of international bodies such as the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, who recommend that governments should work towards the decriminalisation of sex work and The Lancet which recently published a special series on HIV and Sex Workers, which also recommends the decriminalisation of sex work and reported “Decriminalisation of sex work would have the greatest effect on the course of HIV epidemics across all settings, averting 33–46% of HIV infections in the next decade.”

This statement by the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW) was written in collaboration with NSWP earlier in 2015.

This Policy Brief is a short summary of evidence for action drawn from: The Right(s) Evidence: Sex Work, Violence and HIV in Asia - A Multi-Country Study and recent key studies and guidance including The Lancet Special Series on Sex work and HIV and the WHO Consolidated Guidance for K

In April 2015, the Open Society Foundations organised a meeting of experts and advocates concerned about the future of The Global Fund, particularly in the areas of preserving support to important programs in middle-income countries and the role of The Global Fund in supporting access to medicines. The two papers, presented at the meeting, discuss and critique The Global Fund's funding strategies. The meeting report summarises the conclusions of the meeting.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) hosted its first ‘Expert Consultation Meeting STIs among Sex Workers’ meeting in October 2014 and has now released its public report of the meeting. NSWP was represented at the meeting.

Working Together is a guide to increase and improve the meaningful involvement of the community sector, including key population networks, local NGOs, ASOs, and networks of people living with HIV, in all aspects of national HIV responses, with an emphasis on national planning and decision-making processes.

This document provides ten reasons why decriminalising sex work is the best policy for promoting health and human rights of sex workers, their families, and communities. Removing criminal prosecution of sex work goes hand-in-hand with recognizing sex work as work and protecting the rights of sex workers through workplace health and safety standards. Decriminalising sex work means sex workers are more likely to live without stigma, social exclusion, and fear of violence.

This document provides information and practical guidance for civil society organizations and key population networks on the updated Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) Eligibility Requirements which came into effect on January 1, 2015.

You can download this 11 page resource as a PDF above. This resource is in English.

The UK Network of Sex Work Projects, with women, men and transgender people working in the UK sex industry, developed this booklet on Safety Advice for Sex Workers in the UK. This booklet provides general and detailed safety advice for sex workers in different situations and different work places. It also includes information on ways to report bad clients and contact information for local sex worker projects in the UK.

This four-page illustrated brochure explains how the Samvedana Plus programme - in partnership with a community-based organisation of sex workers - is intervening with the women who face abuse, their intimate partners and the wider society to:

This publication documents the lessons learned from the process of implementing a four-country research project on sex work and violence through the narratives and reflections of those who participated in the research since its inception in 2011. The publication was commissioned by the Centre for Advocacy on Stigma and Marginalization (CASAM) in consultation with APNSW, UNDP, UNFPA and P4P (Asia-Pacific regional offices in Bangkok). Funding for the travel to conduct interviews towards this documentation was provided by UNDP.

The regional report of this multi-country study contains findings and recommendations to address violence experienced by sex workers in Asia.  Sex workers experience extreme physical, sexual, emotional and economic violence at work, in health care and custodial settings, in their neighbourhoods and in their homes. This violence denies sex workers their fundamental human rights — to equal protection under the law; protection against torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; and their right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

This study gives a legal analysis of the legislative framework and jurisprudence relating to human trafficking in Canada. It also analyses the views of both criminal justice system personnel and SWAN society personnel on the enforcement and use of anti-trafficking legal measures. Contents include: