Resources

The bulletin of the DMSC, discussing common financial scams, police violence, and the work done to tackle HIV, human rights violations by the police, and the stigma that prevents sex workers from accessing services. It also discusses the success that self-regulating sex worker boards have had in tackling trafficking, in contrast to the more well-resourced non-sex worker-led programmes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) released new guidelines for earlier treatment of HIV at the International Aids Society Conference 2013.

A fact sheet on the guidelines can be accessed here.

This article looks at how legalisation came to the netherlands; what it was intended to do, and what the impact has been on sex workers. In order to answer these lines of enquiry, the article examines what discourses frame the major actors in this debate, starting with a historical overview of Dutch sex work policies throughout the 20th century. Having established the socio-political backdrop of the Netherlands' approach to legalised sex work, the resource discusses how legalisation (or regulationism) "did not solve a number of serious problems in the sex industry".

This resource asks the reader to think more carefully and deeply about things we might think we already know; specifically, the language we use to talk about sex work. It reaffirms to a sex working readership that "sex workers are often framed in very simplistic and stereotypical ways that erase the complexity of our realities" and thus, "when our choice of words differs from the beliefs and stereotypes that people have about us, people are quick to discredit us".

There is a growing interest in the evidence that antiretroviral therapy (ART) can be used to prevent or reduce transmission of HIV. The Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+) have recently released their position paper on the use of ART as prevention. The paper focuses on what this means for the general population of people living with HIV (at the individual level) and what it means for public health (at the population level).

This concise guide to the difference between sex work and trafficking - and what a response to trafficking grounded in sex worker rights looks like - discusses the key differences between sex work and trafficking; the differences that make the habitual conflation of the two not only inaccurate but also a hinderance to tackling actual exploitation, and a threat to the human rights of sex workers.

The report to the UN by the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights in Namibia discusses the challenges faced by sex workers, writing "the criminalization of sex work in Namibia lies at the foundation of a climate of stigma, discrimination and violence surrounding sex work".

This is the fourth issue of NSWP's quarterly newsletter ‘Sex Work Digest’. 

This resource is in English.  You can download this 6 page PDF above.

This reference text seeks to "clarify terms and illustrate examples of alternatives to the use of criminal law as a response to sex work". It provides capsule definitions - with small case-studies or examples - of what a variety of laws and policies look like in terms of their impact on sex work, covering criminalisation, legalisation, and decriminalisation, along with a mini-discussion of other laws that are used against sex workers, such as the criminalisation of HIV transmission, or immigration enforcement.

'Criminalising Condoms' details the experiences of sex workers and outreach services across six countries (Kenya, Namibia, Russia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and the United States). It finds that where any degree of criminalisation exists (whether of sex workers themselves, or of activities relating to sex work), condoms are used as evidence of sex work. This forces sex workers to choose between carrying safer sex supplies, thus attracting the deleterious attentions of the police, or working without condoms in the hope that the police will refrain from harassment - but also without the supplies that would protect them from HIV.

Emi Koyama draws out links in rhetoric and tactics between the war on terror and the war on trafficking. She addresses three key myths of the anti-trafficking movement. Koyama demonstrates the extent to which the ceaseless propogation of these myths constitutes a "wilfull ignorance of reality" best understood as a "tacit conspiracy between the promoters of misinformation and its recipients". She locates this "tacit conspiracy" in a preference for the simple fears of scary "bad people" over the more complex, structural fears of "poverty, racism, sexism, neoliberalistic global capitalism, and its assault on the public safety net, homophobia, transphobia, and unjust immigration laws".

Press Release

2^nd June 2013

NSWP+ launched to fight for the rights of positive sex workers

June 2^nd marked International Sex Workers’ Day. NSWP celebrated this important day by officially launching the NSWP+ platform through a new website: http://www.nswp.org/nswp-plus

This 10th Missing the Target report (MTT10) focuses on challenges to the scale-up of HIV services as required to implement the Treatment 2.0 framework. That framework refers to an initiative developed and proposed in June 2010 by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) that aims to “catalyse the next phase of HIV treatment scale-up through promoting innovation and efficiency gains.”

Briefing paper produced by Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) that outlines the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal being negotiated between the U.S. and ten other Pacific nations.

On April 22^nd 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court will listen to evidence surrounding the case named USAID v AOSI (Alliance for Open Society International). The case relates to the constitutional status of the anti-prostitution pledge that must be signed by all USAID funding recipients. This pledge is a provision within the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003 (known as the Leadership Act), which forces sub-grantees to explicitly oppose prostitution in order to qualify for U.S. Government funding to fight HIV and AIDS. The results of this case will have dramatic consequences for NGOs, faith-based groups, civil society, and importantly for NSWP’s members, for sex workers globally.

Sex Worker Forum of Vienna, Austria - supplement to the Shadow CEDAW report submitted to the 54th Session of CEDAW February / March 2013.

You can download this 36 page PDF report above.

This resource is in English.

Sex-Worker Forum of Vienna, Austria - Shadow CEDAW report submitted to the 54th Session of CEDAW February / March 2013.

You can download this 44 page PDF report above.

This resource is in English.

SZEXE Shadow CEDAW report submitted to the 54th Session of CEDAW February / March 2013.

You can download this 16 page PDF report above.

This resource is in English.

Tais Plus - Shadow CEDAW report submitted to CEDAW in 2008.

You can download this 5 page PDF report above.

This resource is in English.