‘The XXX Forum’ entitled “Celebrating a Decade of Action, Designing Our Future,” was a first of its kind in Quebec. It was a historical moment, a time for dialogue and for sharing our thoughts on how to support sex workers all over the world. This meeting allowed us to consolidate a system for community support by and for sex workers, and to attack the stigma that affects people who do sex work.
Resources
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Tais Plus - Shadow CEDAW report submitted to CEDAW in 2008.
You can download this 5 page PDF report above.
This resource is in English.
NSWP Memorandum and Articles of Association 2008.
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.
UNGASS - High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS
New York
10-11 June 2008
Last update: June 15, 2008
Overview
The United Nations held a High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS in New York, 10-11 June 2008. Sex workers and advocates distributed a statement that "Sex Workers Thank UN Secretary General for His Support" during the opening plenary.
Meena Seshu speaks out against India's Immoral Trafficking Prevention Amendment
Across histories and cultures, people in prostitution and sex work have historically been cast as social deviants. With the arrival of HIV and AIDS, they have been further stigmatized, as carriers and transmitters of the disease, and have been excluded from policy decisions that threaten their health and well-being.
Next month, the Parliament of India will vote on an amendment to India's 2006 Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Amendment Bill that will further stigmatize and violate the human rights of sex workers by criminalizing the purchase of sexual services in India.
National Day of Action against India's Immoral Trafficking Prevention Amendment
Bangalore
July 1, 2008
The Karnataka State Coalition Against ITPA (Constituent Organizations: Aneka, Ashodaya Samithi, Jyothi Mahila Sangha, Karnataka Sexual Minorities Forum, Karnataka Sexworkers Union, LesBiT, Samara, Sangama, Sangram, Suraksha, Swathi Mahila Sangha, Veshya Anyay Mukthi Parishad, Vijaya Mahila Sangha) urges the government of India to:
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.
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.
MEDIA RELEASE
Friday, December 30, 2006
WE ARE INDIGNANT!
We Condemn To The Highest The Degree The Barbaric Acts Alleged To Be Police And Uniformed Officers Of Guatemala!
It is sad to note that persons who are given the responsibility of safeguarding the lives of the people in the community and maintaining peace and order ARE THE LAW BREAKERS THEMSELVES!
The death of Paulina and shooting of Sulma are examples of abuse of power! We are sad and we condemn those perpetrators that has caused her death and endangering the life of all other travestis/transgenders who do sex work!
APNSW statement at 7th 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.
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.
This report provides baseline information on the sex industry prior to the passage of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 (the Act) in New Zealand. It will assist the Committee evaluate the extent to which the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 (the Act) is meeting its purpose.
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.
Prostitution, the exchange of sex for money and other valuable consideration, is legal in Canada. However, it is difficult for sex workers and their clients to engage legally in prostitution. Four sections of the Criminal Code (sections 210 to 213) make illegal virtually every activity related to prostitution and prohibit prostitution in almost every conceivable public or private place. Sections 210 and 211 respectively make it illegal for a person to keep a “bawdy-house” – i.e., a place regularly used for prostitution – or to transport a person to such a place. Section 212 makes it illegal to encourage or force people to participate in prostitution (also known as “procuring”), or to live on the money earned from prostitution by someone else (also known as “living on the avails of prostitution”).