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A short film by the International Network of Sex Work Projects. Taking the Pledge features sex workers from Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Mali, Thailand and more. They describe the problems created by the ‘anti-prostitution pledge’ required to receive USAID and PEPFAR funds. In English, Khmer, Thai, French, Portuguese and Bengali, with English subtitles. Watch in full-screen mode to read the subtitles. Theme: Human Rights and Law Author: Network of Sex Work Projects
The African Sex Worker Alliance (ASWA), Bar Hostess, Sisonke and SWEAT in conjunction with the Ford Foundation, OXFAM NOVIB, UNDP and OXFAM GB are to launch research on human rights violations against sex workers. They explain, “Some of the problems sex workers face include murder, systematic and regular violence and rape, stigmatization and marginalization and lack of access to health care clinics. Serial killing is not uncommon with cases reported last year in Uganda, Kenya and South Africa. In many incidents these cases are not investigated. The complexity and vast variations within the sex industry are not embraced and simplified. Over
The risk environment framework provides a valuable but under-utilised heuristic for understanding environmental vulnerability to HIV and other sexually transmitted infections among female sex workers. Brothels have been shown to be safer than street-based sex work, with higher rates of consistent condom use and lower HIV prevalence. While entertainment venues are also assumed to be safer than street-based sex work, few studies have examined environmental influences on vulnerability to HIV in this context. As part of the Young Women’s Health Study, a prospective observational study of young women (15-29 years) engaged in sex work in Phnom Penh, we conducted in-depth
An article in Crime, Law and Social Change Volume 56, Number 5, 463-484. In the sex trafficking literature, the term “trafficker” is often used to refer to all the various actors who are involved in the business of transnational sex work. It thus includes those who recruit women in the source countries; those who transport victims across international borders; and those who manage and exploit the women in the various commercial sex venues in the destination countries. In this paper, we will look at some of the people who fall into these categories of being “traffickers.” Our goal is to better understand
the Human Rights Caucus and the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) in the negotiations around the ‘Protocol to Suppress, Prevent and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children.’ It focuses in particular on how trafficking came to be defined, and the pivotal role played by the notion of ‘consent’. It examines how ‘consent’ emerged as the international standard for determining ‘trafficking in women’, placing current debates in historical context. Finally, it assesses the potential for the Trafficking Protocol to be used to promote sex workers’ and migrants’ human rights. doezema02.pdf
The aim of the research presented in this report was to explore the social contexts, life experiences, vulnerabilities and sexual risks experienced by men who sell sex in Southern and Eastern Africa, with a focus on five countries; Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. It sought to better understand differing and similar socio-cultural scenarios and personal life stories of male sex workers in these countries and to improve the representation of male sex workers in relevant regional organisations, particularly within the African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA). The research explored: Social contexts – including geographical and special contexts of male sex Sexual
This study, conducted among a sample of 1,000 female and transgender sex workers in Phnom Penh identifies that half of those surveyed reported being beaten by police; about a third were gang-raped by police; slightly more than one-third were gang-raped by gangsters and about three-quarters were gang-raped by clients or men pretending to be clients. Most of these rapes occurred at gunpoint or with knives or other weapons. In brothels, managers often colluded with police and favored clients to force the women into unprotected sex. In parks, police often encouraged gangsters to rape the sex workers. Both sex workers and the policemen
An article in the Journal of Law and Society, Volume 37, Number 1, March 2010. Weitzer explores the growth of what he describes as a moral crusade in the US aimed at expanding the criminalisation of sex work. He shows how there is a growing trend to conflate sex work with human trafficking and explores the impact of this movement on legal norms and government policies. Weitzer believes this trend has been prompted by the expansion of the sex industry and its normalisation in American society. He makes the interesting observation that, unlike with issues like the liberalisation of drug policy
A Publication by Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA), written by Zawadi Nyong’o and edited by Christine Butegwa and Solome Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe. AMwA has been working in partnership with sex worker activists in Uganda and other countries in East Africa. This oral history project allowed women to speak for themselves to try and better understand the politics behind sexuality, sexual rights and sex work. The research tries to present the multiple dimensions of women’s lives, “Women who happen to have worked or still work in the sex industry. Women in their complexity, full of personality, experiences, dashed dreams and high hopes. Mothers,
An article in Crime, Law and Social Change Volume 56, Number 5, 443-46. Large numbers of sex trafficking victims, on the order of 80,000–100,000, have been alleged to exist in Cambodia over the past decade. Empirical results obtained from measuring the numbers of such victims in Cambodia are contrasted with the lack of support for the widely circulated guesstimates of these numbers. Examples of similar fabrications are discussed and followed through some of their early publication history. The methodology of conducting empirical field research in less developed countries is discussed and the origin of the guesstimates is probed in detail. Both the
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