Resources

Canadian sex worker-led organisation Stella, l’amie de Maimie developed these guidelines for acceptable research partnerships with the organisation. The guidelines set out core principles for both researchers seeking partnership and Stella.

Empower Foundation is a Thai organisation since 1985. Empower promotes opportunities for women workers in the entertainment industry. Empower strives to promote these opportunities and rights to all women workers regardless of their country of origin.

United Nations Commission on Human Rights, 58^th Session, 18 March – 26 April 2002
Items 14 and 15 of the agenda.

In the spring issue of Soundings the author compares lived experience to the representations of trafficking presented by major media and government agencies. The evidence presented is a deconstruction the way that the discourse on sex work and trafficking is shaped.

UNAIDS called a meeting at the Barcelona Aids Conference in July 2002 of program planners, researchers, field workers and activists to begin discussing its work on HIV care and prevention among sex workers and clients. For the NSWP this was an important opportunity to ensure that UNAIDS is aware of the NSWP's concerns about programs that sex workers see as ineffective and/or as contributing to the abuse of sex workers. The meeting was preceded by NSWP demonstrations that drew attention to the negative impact on sex workers' human rights of anti-trafficking and public health measures such as mandatory registration and examination of sex workers that are increasingly being promoted as effective approaches to HIV prevention.

100% Condom Use Policy (CUP) programmes that aim to reduce HIV among female sex workers are being implemented or planned in several countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa. As a result of claims made about the role of 100% CUP in reducing national HIV epidemics, UNAIDS and other key agencies promote the programmes as a "best practice". The NSWP has a different view of the theory and practice of 100% CUP. Our view is based on ethical analysis and on real evidence from the field.

Social justice activists internationally have hailed as progressive and humane the 1998 report The Sex Sector: The Economic and Social Bases of Prostitution in Southeast Asia. Edited by Lin Lean Lim of the International Labour Office in Geneva, the book recommends that the sex industry be included in official government accountings, first, because of its enormous contributions to regional economies, and second, as the only way to improve the situation of those employed as sex workers. With a recognised sex sector, governments would be required to extend labour rights and protections to people who work in it. At the same time, the report unequivocally demands the eradication of child prostitution as a serious human rights violation and an intolerable form of child labour.

The Conference was held in La Habana, Cuba, from April 7 - 12, 2003. The first Latin-American conference happened in Rio de Janeiro on 2000. Cuba was chosen because of the low incidence of HIV (lowest in Latin America). Around 39 countries and more than 2000 participants attended the conference. Like always, there was a very low participation of sex workers.

A Prostitutes of New York (PONY) member reports on a visit from Subhash Thottiparambil, a sex worker rights advocate from Kerala, India.

Sex Workers mark the 3rd International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers with a protest at the 6th World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong. 

December 17 is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers and each year sex-worker organisations in different parts of the world organise different activities to commemorate the sex workers who have been abused and/or killed, and urge the public to respect sex workers' human rights. Just in time for the 6th World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference (MC6) held in Hong Kong, sex-worker organisations from all over the world (Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, Thailand, Cambodia) marched and held exhibitions to help the public understand more about the situation of sex workers, and to eliminate violence against sex workers.

PONY Statement on Demand

Submitted to the Beijing +10 Fourth World Conference on Women by Prostitutes of New York

Written by Jo Doezema and Melissa Ditmore

Prostitutes of New York is an organization of many kinds of workers in New York City's sex industry. PONY is a member of the international Network of Sex Work Projects, which advocates for the rights of sex workers around the world. Two keywords have arisen in anti-sex work anti-trafficking advocacy: "demand" and "dignity."

For more information on Prostitution Issues at the World Conference on Women Beijing '95 see the Prostitutes Education Network at: http://www.bayswan.org/UNpage.html.

Trafficking Statement from the North American Delegates of the Network of Sex Work Projects

Recognizing that fraudulent and coercive trafficking and forced prostitution have historically been problems, threatening the health and well-being of women in developing countries, as well as women in post-industrialized countries, and

From: PRay@amnesty.org
Subject: Guatemala - LGBT activist shot, witness in danger
Category: PUBLIC
Date: 21 December 2005
AI Index: AMR 34/044/2005
UA 325/05

Fear for Safety — Guatemala

LGBT activist shot, witness in danger

Sulma (legal name Kevin Josue Alegria Robles) Other transvestite sex workers in Guatemala City Other members of the Organizacion de Apoyo a una Sexualidad Integral frente al SIDA, Integral Sexuality AIDS Support Organisation (OASIS)

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.

MEDIA RELEASE
Monday, January 20, 2003

Network of Sex Work Projects responds to city murders

The international Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP — based in Cape Town) has reacted with shock and horror at the execution style murder of young men working in a City massage parlour earlier today. This is a tragic loss of the lives of young folk. The Network is an organisation that advocates around the health and human rights of sex workers at an international level.

Mon, 5 May 2003 23:51:09 -0300 (ART)
From: "Paulo Longo" phlongo2003@yahoo.com.br
To: letters@nationalreview.com, nronline@nationalreview.com
Subject: Letter to the editor

Dear Editor:

Donna Hughes (May 1, 2003, Accommodation or Abolition? Solutions to the problem of sexual trafficking and slavery) grossly misrepresents the international Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP). Her assertions are risible. The NSWP actively works against trafficking in persons, especially children, and lobbied for the passage of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act in 2001. The NSWP also works against the violation of civil liberties in the so-called 100% Condom Use Policy programmes, which are dangerously coercive and include forced physical examinations in unsterile and disease-promoting conditions.

BACKGROUND
Tuesday, May 20, 2003

Recent changes to HIV funding in the US (HR 1298)

The US Senate approved a new international HIV/AIDS funding bill for approximately $15 billion on Thursday May 15, 2003 (Senate Resolution HR 1298, United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003). The Senate Bill is almost identical to its predecessor in the US House of Representatives and passed through the Senate unusually quickly, preventing debate about the content of the initiative that will triple HIV funding from the US to projects worldwide.

On May 21, the US House gave the final congressional approval to a bill that provides funding for a five-year US$15bn plan to fight HIV/Aids around the world. The bill now proceeds to President Bush for his signature. It is expected that he will urge other states at the G8 meeting early next month to follow the US lead in committing significant funds to fighting HIV/AIDS.

MEDIA RELEASE
Thursday, September 11, 2003

Transgendered sex workers deserve dignity and rights

WASHINGTON, DC — The Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) would like express its condolences to the families and friends of two transgendered women, Bella Evangelista and Emonie Spaulding, who were murdered in separate incidents in Washington DC during the past week. Furthermore, the NSWP sends out our hope for the recovery of Ms Punana Walker who was critically injured on August 20, 2003.

WHO REPORT

Expert workgroup meeting for the development of a toolkit for HIV/AIDS prevention and care interventions in sex work settings

Geneva, December 8-9, 2003

Background

Since the first half of 2003, Mrs. Manoela Moeller, from the Prevention Unit of WHO, has been contacting NSWP, asking for publications and other materials from sex workers´ organizations throughout the world. In October she contacted the co-coordinator, checking availability to a meeting in December. She also asked to nominate "a sex worker from Asia" (they still do it! When will they recognize that we are organized all over the world?!!). I told about the APNSW and nominated Tini, who is also the chair of the board of NSWP; WHO accepted the nomination. The meeting , named "expert workgroup meeting" was organized for 8 and 9 Dec. at WHO headquarters, in Geneva. Before that, a small meeting happened at the Alliance Headquarters in Brighton, where several inputs from Cheryl Overs and Alliance staff were considered.