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Effectiveness of an Adapted Evidence-Based Woman-Focused Intervention for Sex Workers and Non-Sex Workers: The Women's Health Co-op in South Africa

An article in the Journal of Drug Issues, Volume 41, Issue 2, Spring 2011, p.233-252. South Africa’s concurrent epidemics of HIV, substance use, and gender-based violence point to the urgent need for interventions that address the intersectional nature of these issues. A community-based randomized trial assessed the efficacy of an adapted evidence-based Woman-Focused HIV intervention addressing all three issues with sex workers and non-sex workers. At 6-month follow-up, non-sex workers in the Woman-Focused intervention reported significantly lower mean numbers of days drinking alcohol in the previous 30 days, were significantly less likely to meet DSM-IV criteria for alcohol dependence, were

Violence in Contract Work Among Female Sex Workers in Andhra Pradesh, India

An article in J Infect Dis. (2011) 204 (suppl 5): S1235-S1240. Background: Female sex workers (FSWs) are vulnerable to physical and sexual violence at work. This article examines the prevalence of recent physical and sexual violence victimization and associations of type of sex work among a large sample of young FSWs. Method: We used data from a cross-sectional survey on sex trafficking and sex work in southern India that included 1138 FSWs aged 18–25 years residing in 3 districts of Andhra Pradesh state. The independent variable was organization of sex work. FSWs on contract at sex work establishments outside their

Sex Workers’ Rights are Human Rights

One group that participated actively in the march and which is represented in conference sessions as well as at the conference’s Global Village is sex workers. During Sunday night’s opening session a group gathered under the red umbrellas that symbolize the sex workers’ movement shouted “sex workers’ rights are human rights” and demanded “decriminalize sex work, now.” Over the past few days commercial sex workers have spoken about their experiences advocating for greater attention to human rights in the context of HIV/AIDS within Global Village meetings. And in this morning’s plenary session Meena Saraswathi Seshu, General Secretary of Sampada Grameen

Sex workers in India combat stigma to demand rights and health care

Sampada Grameen Mahila Sanstha (SANGRAM) is an HIV/AIDS organization that works primarily with sex workers. SANGRAM is based in the Sangli district in Maharashtra state. The International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC), an international advocacy organization for women’s health and rights, has partnered with SANGRAM since 2006 and produced a documentary about their work called “SANGRAM: Sex Workers Organizing in India.” Paradigm Shift, a feminist organization in New York, screened the documentary during an event on sex work and human rights in March. Audacia Ray, program officer for IWHC visited SANGRAM. She told MediaGlobal about SANGRAM’s approach to reproductive health care

UGANDA: 'Why Waste ARVs on Sex Workers?'

By Evelyn Matsamura Kiapi Maclean Kamya. / Credit: Evelyn Kiapi/IPS KAMPALA, Dec 3 (IPS) – Sex workers, among the populations most at risk of HIV infection in Uganda, say they are yet to realise their right to health. Sex workers say they have been left out of national HIV prevention programmes and have difficulty accessing life-prolonging drugs. “Its not that these [HIV/AIDS] services are not available, it’s about the stigma attached to the sex worker,” says Maclean Kamya, a sex worker and human rights defender in the capital, Kampala. “When we visit health centres, some health workers say, ‘But you

They are no longer sex workers, declares Shawa

Principal Secretary in the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) responsible for HIV and AIDS and Nutrition Mary Shawa told an AIDS Conference being held in Lilongwe that the name Sex Workers for women who ply their trade by selling their bodies is discriminatory and has therefore been phased out. Officially opening the conference dubbed “National Dialogue on HIV and AIDS and Most At Risk Populations in Malawi at Cresta Hotel Tuesday morning, Shawa said the vocabulary had now changed from sex workers – which is discriminatory – to “People who frequent public places.” “We moved from prostitute to

CREA research on violence against women in India, Bangladesh and Nepal

A research study on violence against lesbian women, female sex workers, and disabled women in three countries in South Asia—Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. The study investigated the hypothesis that women who are outside the mainstream of the South Asian society suffer high rates of violence and are often unable to seek and receive protection from State agencies. In the three countries, they investigated experiences of violence suffered by women who are marginalised on account of their sexuality (women who have sex with women), their occupation (women who sell sex), or their physical disability (sensory or locomotor disability). Violence was defined

Sex workers run restaurant in Mysore

A news story by Team Mangalorean Bangalore featured on mangalorean.com on the 18 February 2010. The story outlines how sex workers have utilised a World Bank grant to start their own restaurant in Mysore. The purpose of the restaurant is to challenge stigma and discrimination against sex workers it has also provided income generation opportunities for older sex workers. Profits from the Ashodaya restaurant fund a hospice for those terminally ill with AIDS. And, when unclaimed bodies are found in the city, it is this group that pays for the last rites – work that few others would be willing

Loss of follow-up among HIV infected female sex workers receiving antiretrovirals in Dakar, Senegal

Article in the Journal of AIDS and HIV Research Vol. 3(5), pp. 100-102, May 2011. A better understanding of the significance and determinants of loss of follow-up and key potential related outcome measures, such as death and missed study visit would assist program evaluation and provide basis for future interventions. Senegal has one of Africa’s lowest HIV/AIDS infection rate, less than 1%. But vulnerable groups such as sex workers have higher HIV prevalence. Currently, HIV infection among legal sex workers in Dakar has risen to 27.1%, compared to 1% 20 years ago, (Fact sheet, 2004). The prostitution in Senegal has

A Conference for All? Travel Ban Threatens IAC 2012

Who’s really welcome at IAC 2012? With the 2010 International AIDS Conference barely a month behind us, controversy is already brewing over who will — and won’t — be able to attend the conference when it hits Washington, D.C. in 2012. At the closing of this year’s conference, President Obama delivered an enthusiastic video message, welcoming “all” delegates to the capital in 2012. In reality, however, strict U.S. travel regulations ban two groups heavily impacted by HIV — sex workers and drugs users. The restrictions, if left unchanged, threaten the conference’s efficacy as a forum for all, further disenfranchising two

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