Resources

This is the Report of the Committee on HIV/AIDS which documents the discussions leading up to the drafting process of ILO Recommendation No. 200 on HIV/AIDS and the world of work (you can download this document as a separate source by following this link).  

The first international labour standard on HIV and AIDS in the world of work was adopted by governments, employers’ and workers’ representatives from ILO member States at the International Labour Conference in June 2010.

St. James Infirmary provides compassionate and non-judgmental healthcare and social
services for current and former sex workers of all genders and sexual orientations while helping to prevent occupational illnesses and injuries through a comprehensive continuum of services.

This report was commissioned and funded by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and implemented by the Sex Work Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT). The report found that during the 2010 World Cup period, there was a small increase in the number of female sex workers who advertised online and in newspapers and sex workers did not typically see more clients during the World Cup period. The report also found that sex workers' demographics did not change significantly during the World Cup. The date does not support fears about an increase of children or foreign migrant sex workers into the sex industry during the World Cup.

Short report in English of the work of the UNAIDS Advisory Group on HIV and Sex Work during 2010.

This is the Plain English version of the Note for Record of the June 2010 UNAIDS Advisory Group on HIV and Sex Work.

This is the English version of the Note for Record of the June 2010 UNAIDS Advisory Group on HIV and Sex Work.

Stigma still the major barrier for an effective HIV/AIDS response

By Shyamala Ashok, India

After a great trauma and toil in loosing one of our committed peer educators for sex workers and most of all a young friend of ours with the HIV status, a member of the women's positive network in Pondicherry, I have tried to illustrate the case for an analysis as below.

From:Melissa Hope

Date:September 13, 2005 11:48:42 AM EDT
To:bmcserieseditor@biomedcentral.com, editorial@biomedcentral.com, info@biomedcentral.com
Cc:Lori Heise , brachlis@ccnm.edu, Kumanan.Wilson@uhn.on.ca, sosingh@jhsph.edu, pwu@ccnm.edu, elainem.wong@gmail.com, emills@ccnm.edu
Subject:Letter in response to Mills et al's "Media reporting of tenofovir trials in Cambodia and Cameroon"

To the editor:

Mills et al("Media reporting of tenofovir trials in Cambodia and Cameroon" BMC International Health and Human Rights 2005, 5:6, 24 August 24, 2005) claim in their first sentence that PREP trials were "closed due to activist pressure on host country governments". Activists worked to improve trial conditions, which would have been a real victory. The reason these trials were closed was that researchers did not meet with or meet the needs of participants. This lack of engagement with participants is why participants became activists and reached out to their international support networks and the media.

APNSW statement at 7^th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, Kobe, Japan

July 5, 2005

Please forward widely

This morning at the closing ceremony of the Seventh International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific Maria-san and Andrew of the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW) talked about sex workers' experience of the conference. The opportunity for sex workers from twenty countries throughout the region to come together again. We had a lot to celebrate. The APNSW and the Japanese sex workers movement were both founded here in Japan in Yokohama in 1994. Now as then our Japanese sex worker colleagues were wonderful hosts organizing cultural events that ensured that male, female and transgender sex workers were the stars of the day.

The report Sexuality and Development: Brazilian National Response to HIV/AIDS amongst Sex Workers presents the main findings of a case study conducted during 2008-2009 by The Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association (ABIA), which is one component of a global research initiative sponsored by the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) “Sexuality and Development” Program.

These terms of reference, developed jointly by representatives of the Global Working Group on HIV and Sex Work Policy and United Nations system, seek to enhance consultation on HIV and sex work between UNAIDS and sex workers.

This report focuses on indoor sex work primarily because, while these sex workers are largely invisible, they face many of the same problems as the more visible street-based prostitutes. The stereotypes of indoor sex workers encompass only extremes of either wealth and glamour or coercion and violence. The true picture reveals a more nuanced reality—the majority of indoor sex workers in this study live surprisingly precarious lives, and encounter a high level of exactly the same problems faced by street-based sex workers, including violence, constant fear of police interference, and a lack of substantive support services. Finding concrete and reality-based solutions to the needs of this invisible, vulnerable, and marginalised community is imperative to helping them create safe and stable lives.

In response to the traditional emphasis on the rights, interests, and well-being of individual research subjects, there has been growing attention focused on the importance of involving communities in research development and approval.

This booklet explains how Canada’s criminal laws related to prostitution affect the health and the human rights of sex workers. It recommends changes to those laws to improve the lives of sex workers. This booklet is based on the report Sex, work, rights: reforming Canadian criminal laws on prostitution (click for more information and to download the 124 page report), published in 2005 by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network.

Sex workers are frequently omitted from discussions about the links between criminalisation, marginalisation, and increased HIV transmission. At the IAS 2010 conference in Vienna, substantial attention was focused on the negative impacts that criminalisation has on men who have sex with men, injection drug users, and people living with HIV—but very little on its effects on sex workers. Few outside of the Global Village explicitly called for decriminalisation of sex work or mentioned that laws criminalizing HIV transmission and exposure exacerbate the damage already being done to sex workers' health and rights. This article explores this omission, how other hard-hit constituencies have struggled for their place on the HIV/AIDS advocacy agenda, and why the HIV/AIDS field should be actively collaborating with sex workers' rights organisations, particularly on anti-criminalisation work.

In Uganda, 6.4% of the 33 million people are HIV/AIDS positive. This is a sharp decline from about 30% in the 1980s, when the pandemic first struck the country. The theme for this year’s World Aids Day was: 'Universal Access and Human Rights'. However, Uganda chose to mark the day under the theme to highlight the need for Paediatric HIV/AIDS interventions under the theme “I have a duty to protect every child from HIV/AIDS….. Do you?” The theme reflected Uganda’s national priority in addressing the challenges of the pandemic in the country, with an estimated 25,000 children born each year HIV positive.

An analysis on indoor sex work settings in seven European cities and a manual on examples of good practices in the work with sex workers. The manual has two objectives: To provide an analysis on local level of the indoor prostitution scene, and to present examples of good practice for service providers regarding the implementation of new outreach methodologies in order to encourage a broader development of comprehensive indoor outreach services.

This is a leaflet on safety at work made for sex workers by sex workers and organisations from five EU countries. The leaflet is available in Bulgarian, English, French, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish. The leaflet targets sex workers working in hotels, apartments, brothels, clubs, bars, massage parlours, saunas, sex shops, and other indoor venues. The leaflet is the result of our local experiences. It presents advice and tips related to safety at work, and information on sex work legislation in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy and Portugal.

This is a leaflet on safety at work made for sex workers by sex workers and organisations from five EU countries. The leaflet is available in Bulgarian, English, French, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish. The leaflet targets sex workers working in hotels, apartments, brothels, clubs, bars, massage parlours, saunas, sex shops, and other indoor venues. The leaflet is the result of our local experiences. It presents advice and tips related to safety at work, and information on sex work legislation in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy and Portugal.