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.

The Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) stands by Human Rights Defender Alejandra Gil and Amnesty International’s decision to adopt a policy to protect the human rights of sex workers, including the full decriminalisation of sex work.

The Summary Report NSWP Strategic Review is a short summary of the extensive NSWP Strategic Review 2010-15. The summary reports the most important findings and recommendations of the review.

The NSWP Strategic Review is a review of the 2010-15 strategic plans of NSWP. The review was led by an independent consultant. It used five research methods: a survey of all NSWP members, consultation with selected members, in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, a focus group discussion with staff and a literature review. The NSWP Strategic Review aims to inform the development of a new NSWP strategic plan for 2016-20.

This is the 13th issue of NSWP's quarterly newsletter ‘Sex Work Digest’, covering the period July - September 2015. 

Features in this issue include: Decriminalisation updates from Scotland, New South Wales & South Africa; the raid at Rentboy.com; Amnesty International’s resolution on sex work; and the WHO early release guideline on ART and PrEP.

Resources featured include: new NSWP Smart Guide’s on SWIT & the Global Fund; Research for Sex Work 14; and Economic Empowerment Programmes for Sex Workers in Africa.

This resource is in English.  You can download this 9 page PDF above.

The Annual Report highlights the activities and achievements of NSWP in 2014. These activities include capacity building, providing technical support to regional networks and the development of advocacy tools that bring the human rights of sex workers very strongly into focus.

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.

Research for Sex Work 14: Sex Work is Work is a peer-reviewed publication for sex workers, activists, health workers, researchers, NGO staff and policy makers. It is available in English and Spanish. All issues of Research for Sex Work can be found here.

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.

This briefing paper calls for the decriminalisation of sex work and sets out TAMPEP International’s arguments against the abolitionist feminist lobby groups that work to decriminalisation.

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.

This Africa Regional Report documents case studies of economic empowerment programmes in 6 African countries: Democratic Republic of Congo; Ethiopia; Kenya; Malawi; Nigeria; and Uganda. There are relatively few economic empowerment programmes for sex workers led by sex workers in Africa. As such this regional report evaluates both successful and failed economic empowerment programmes by sex worker-led organisations and non-sex worker-led organisations.

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.

A new public health context to understand male sex work

Researching male sex work offers insight into the sexual lives of men and women while developing a more realistic appreciation for the changing issues associated with male sex work. This type of research is important because it not only reflects a growing and diversifying consumer demand for male sex work, but also because it enables the construction of knowledge that is up-to-date with changing ideas around sex and sexualities.

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.