Resources

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.

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 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.

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”).

This report presents an overview of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support for sex workers, using case studies and literature to present best practices.

The sections include:

Summary

• Definition and Scope of the Problem
• Methods
• Fact-finding and examples
• General issues
• Conclusions
• Appendix: People consulted
• Acknowledgements

You can download this 31 page PDF resource above. This resource is in English.

The aim of this European report is to provide transparency about the legislation on sex work throughout Europe and its impact on the human rights of sex workers, including their access to public health services. The report assesses legislation and policy developments on sex work, migration and health policies on a national and European level and includes a critical evaluation of the various approaches relating to the interrelated issues of sex work, migration and health.

This manual has three main objectives: to present examples of good practice for health and social service providers offering care for migrant and mobile sex workers working in both indoor and outdoor settings, to present examples of different experiences of HIV/STI prevention strategies, as well as introducing and facilitating implementation of innovative tools for specific outreach methodology, peer education, campaigns for clients and advocacy campaigns, to increase and expand good practice actions targeting sex worker and their clients.

This report aims to identify trends and tendencies in relation to the changing patterns of sex work and the living and working conditions of female and transgender sex workers within Europe, with a specific focus on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and programming. The report also focuses on work migration patterns within the European Union (EU), and how the expansion of the EU is affecting sex workers. The various annexes provide additional information that may be relevant to sex workers interested in learning about the structure of TAMPEP, the questionnaire they used to asses each country, their recommendations, and the individual national reports.

This Declaration is made by sex workers and by organisations dedicated to promoting their human rights and welfare. The Declaration lists rights that all individuals within Europe, including sex workers, enjoy under international human rights law; the Declaration then prescribes measures and recommends practices that the signatories of the Declaration believe are the minimum necessary to ensure that these rights are respected and protected. These rights must be respected and protected in the development and implementation of policies and programmes designed to address trafficking, irregular migration or terrorism.

This report summarises the findings of a human rights project conducted by the Sex Workers Project in 2007 and 2008 to explore the impacts and effectiveness of  anti-trafficking approaches in the United States. These approaches include anti-trafficking raids and vice raids targeting sex work conducted by local law enforcement agencies in different cities. It is among the first efforts since the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 to give voice to the perspectives of trafficked persons and sex workers who have experienced anti-trafficking raids. A total of 46 people were interviewed for the report.