The Tajik Parliament wants to abolish sex work. They are introducing harsher measures under the Administrative Liability Code, hoping this will deter sex workers from working in the industry. According to the Tajik news source Ozodi, under new and harsher rules set out in the Administrative Liability Code, sex workers caught breaking the law for the first time will be required to pay double what they paid in the past.
According to a report at Human Rights Watch (HRW), Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, on the 2nd of April, repealed the health regulation used to justify roundups and forced HIV testing of people alleged to be sex workers.
Video: Ruins - Chronincal of an HIV Witch Hunt
A Greek woman, named only as Katerina, took her own life over the weekend. She had been publicly outed as living with HIV in a health ministry initiative in May 2012.
SWAN (Sex Workers’ Rights Advocacy Network in Central and Eastern Europe) in an attempt to raise awareness of the terrible human rights abuses faced by sex workers in Tajikistan, organised a photo flash mob at the AIDS 2014 conference in Melbourne, Australia. The conference learned of the situation in Tajikistan and participants were given details about the recent police crackdown and forced HIV testing of sex workers in the country. To show their solidarity with sex workers in Tajikis
Sex workers constitute a key population affected by HIV, with multiple factors contributing to their vulnerability. Around the world, HIV programming falls short of taking these factors into account and actively working towards their reduction. Sex workers are put at risk of exposure to HIV by criminalisation; violence; unsafe working conditions; violations of their human rights; stigma, discrimination and social marginalisation; drug and alcohol use; unequal access to appropriate health services; minimal access to HIV prevention tools (such as safe sex supplies and safer injecting equipment); barriers to negotiation of safe sex with clients; offers of higher fees for unprotected sex; and an absence of HIV-related information targeted at sex workers, due to insufficient funding for rights-based and sex worker led programming. This Briefing Paper discusses these in detail.
In 2002 Germany enacted the Prostitution Reform Act with the aim of strengthening the social and legal rights of sex workers. On 11th April 2014, the Bundesrat, the Upper House of the German Parliament, called for further debate on the sex work laws and proposed a number of new measures. German sex worker organisation BesD, Trade Association Erotic and Sexual Services, has issued a statement in response, expressing deep concern over some of the suggested reforms.