On Monday August 2, 2010 police in Beijing detained Ye Haiyan, an activist with community based organisation the China Women’s Rights Workshop, after she joined other sex workers in publicly petitioning for the Chinese government to decriminalise prostitution.
The Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) have released a statement in which they explain how they stand in solidarity with Ye Haiyan, human rights defenders, and sex workers who speak up against stigma, discrimination, and the criminalisation of their livelihoods.
Article in HIV AIDS Policy Law Rev. 2008 Dec;13(2-3):71-2.
In their work and lives, sex workers experience disproportionate levels of violence including police abuse, sexual assault, rape, harassment, extortion, and abuse from clients, agents (pimps), sex establishment owners, intimate partners, local residents, and public authorities. Violence against sex workers is a violation of their human rights, and increases sex workers’ vulnerability to HIV. Violence against sex workers must be understood beyond the individual incidents and in a wider context of gender and stigma.
(extract from paper)
Obviously sailing with the wind of change rocking the globe, sex workers at the weekend gathered for a protest and massive rally in Lagos to force the government to legitimise their age long profession practiced in secrecy.
The sex workers who marched through the streets of Ikoyi with fanfare, brandished placards and banners with inscriptions such as “Sex workers have right, African Sex Workers Alliance,” stormed the streets in their numbers demanding justice and recognition
Video on YouTube that explains how raids and rescues in brothel areas in Malaysia have impacted on outreach work with sex workers.
This news interview features members of the Network of Sex Work Projects. They describe the challenges that they face in Uganda and the way that they are subject to stigma and discrimination and excluded from development policy and plans.
ACT AGAINST THE UNLAWFUL ARRESTS OF SEX WORKERS
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.
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.
A news story by Daniel Brody in the Columbia Reports. The story outlines the findings of an opinion survey of sex workers and their clients in Bogota which was taken by the Mayor’s Office. There is no link to the original source so we cannot comment on the accuracy of the reporting or the methods used.
