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Paulo Longo Research Initiative
PLRI aims to consolidate ethical, interdisciplinary scholarship on sex work to inform activism and advocacy that will improve the human rights, health and well being of sex workers.
Review of the Evidence Base for an “Evidence-Based” Policy on HIV Programming with Sex Workers
A literature review produced by Matt Greenall. Programming with sex workers has long been recognised as an important aspect of tackling sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS. Reducing numbers of people in sex work is at the heart of the development by UNAIDS of a Guidance Note on HIV and Sex Work. A review of literature published in databases listing key peer-reviewed journals was conducted in order to establish the evidence base for the “Three Pillars” approach set out in the UNAIDS Guidance Note, paying particular attention to evidence for and consequences of efforts to reduce sex work. The study revealed very weak support for efforts to combat entry to sex work, reduce demand for sex work, and promote exit from sex work, with only a handful of research papers being discovered in each case, displaying inconsistent results. (adapted from author) Theme: Economics and Development review-of-the-evidence-base-for-the-three-pillars-22.pdf
Banking Services for Sex Workers
There are a number of people who earn their living directly or indirectly through commercial sex work. Exploitation, vulnerability, forced labour; servitude, stigmatization characterizes Commercial Sex Workers (CSW). A sense of immorality, criminality, and informality associated with their work keeps them excluded from mainstream society. This clandestine work does not allow them to enjoy any social power. They are compelled to keep themselves away from participating in any social, political or economic activities with mainstream society. Moreover, the lack of education, economic opportunities and health opportunities further marginalizes them. Their involvement in protest movements can only be traced in the past decade. A major portion of the money earned by them is given to the brothel owners, pimps and police. In several instances, under the pretext of safety, brothel owners keep the money earned by the CSW leaving them indebted. Lack of financial literacy restricts opportunities for the CSW to move out of her profession. The first section of the paper encompasses commercial sex work and the dynamics associated with the same. The second section of the paper covers sex work situation in Mumbai and the government, private and civil society contribution for assisting commercial sex workers. The third section
70 per cent women enter flesh trade voluntarily: study
An article in the Indian Express by Shruti Nambiar on the 3 May 2011. Pune: Seventy per cent of women sex workers are not pushed or forced into flesh trade but are drawn to it by the lure of higher income, according to the preliminary result of a survey released by women’s group Akshara. The preliminary results of the first leg of a pan-India study being conducted by two University of Pune researchers was released on April 30. The study by Department of Economics researchers Rohini Sahni and V Kalyan Shankar aims at establishing the premise that prostitution is part of an overall informal labour market in the country. The preliminary results of the survey of 3,000 women and 2,000 men and transgenders engaged in sex work reveal that 70.4 per cent of the women opt for sex work voluntarily and are not coerced into it, and higher income was possibility the primary reason. “We have been collecting data from 14 states and one Union Territory for the two years now. There have been other such researches relating to the topic, but they are more about ascertaining the number of women engaged in prostitution or in intervention in connection to
A Regressive Move Which Would Further Stigmatise and Endanger Sex Workers
Last week Rhoda Grant MSP and Lord Morrow were invited to speak about their respective proposals to criminalise the purchase of sex in Scotland and Northern Ireland at an event in the House of Commons tellingly entitled ‘Prostitution and Sexual Exploitation: Tackling Demand in the UK’. These proposals represent a radical change to the criminal law in this area and, if passed, would have severe consequences for sex workers. They are not supported by public opinion, academic evidence, sex workers themselves or by the majority of those delivering front-line support to sex workers. Both Rhoda Grant and Lord Morrow made the claim that their intentions were to improve the safety of sex workers and save them from what they repeatedly called “exploitation” and by that they meant being paid for sex. Their proposals are built not on a solid evidence-based foundation, as all legislation should be, but on the narrow ideological belief that consenting sex between two adults is wrong if an exchange of money is involved and that all sex work is in and of itself an act of violence against women. In seeing sex work through this narrow, gender-stereotyped prism the proposals lack any understanding of the gender
The Economics of the Commercial Sex Industry
A report by Ahlburg, D and Jensen, E. Commercial sex is a service and the non-price determinants of the demand for commercial sex are the same as for other commodities or services: the number of potential consumers, their preferences and incomes, the prices of other commodities and services, and perhaps their expectations of future prices and income. Since males, particularly single or divorced males, are the main demanders of commercial sex, an increase in their numbers can increase the demand for commercial sex. An increase in the numbers of postpubertal males can occur or a number of reasons, including high median age at marriage, prolonged postpartum abstinence, and migration and other factors that cause unbalanced sex ratios The authors examine the economics of demand and suggest that it is not clear whether demand rises or falls, respectively, when men’s income rises. It has been noted that the price of a condom may be high relative to the price of commercial sex. In the case of low-priced sex work,which is the bulk of the market. For the customer, a condom can increase the cost of sex by 10 per cent to 20 per cent or more, if available and be equal
Nigeria: Sex Workers Account for 32 Percent of HIV
Commercial sex workers account for 32 per cent of HIV prevalence in Nigeria, the Director-General, National Agency for the Control of AIDS, (NACA), Prof. John Idoko, has disclosed. He said this at a press briefing yesterday in Abuja to flag off this year’s World AIDS Day commemorated worldwide every December 1. According to Idoko, Nigeria is at present the second most burdened with the disease, with about 4.1 per cent of her population, about 6.5 million people living with the virus, after South Africa. He also disclosed that the country had the highest burden of mother-to-child transmission in the world, a challenge the NACA boss promised the agency would address in the coming years. While expressing hope over slight decline in HIV/AIDS’ burden from 4.6 percent to 4.1percent in Nigeria between 2008 and 2010, Idoko declared that the transmission of the disease through the sex workers; strengthening the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) campaigns and addressing the challenges of unprotected sex would receive the attention of NACA in the coming years. He expressed the need for the country to source resources from within to tackle the incidence of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria rather than relying on foreign donors. Idoko lamented the
This condom delivers an anti-HIV drug, prevents pregnancy, then disappears
This is a very promising development (ed) Researchers at the University of Washington have just published a paper in PLoS One describing how they’ll use “electrospinning” to create next-generation female condoms made from specially customized nano-fibers. According to a release about the study from University of Washington: Electrospinning uses an electric field to catapult a charged fluid jet through air to create very fine, nanometer-scale fibers. The fibers can be manipulated to control the material’s solubility, strength and even geometry. Because of this versatility, fibers may be better at delivering medicine than existing technologies such as gels, tablets, or pills. Basically, the researchers’ proposal is to spin ultra-thin female condoms woven out of cloth-like fibers and medicine. Above, you can see a magnified image of the resulting condom, complete with sperm who have tried to smash their way through it and failed miserably. The condoms can be woven out of medicines that prevent HIV infections, providing protection against disease while also stopping sperm in their tracks. The electrospun condoms can be designed to dissolve within minutes, or over a period of several days. Women can discreetly put them on before a sexual encounter — either directly, or on a diaphragm or
Listen to sex workers: support decriminalisation and anti-discrimination protections
Article in Interface: a journal for and about social movements, Volume 3(2): 271 – 287 (November 2011). Despite the massive achievements of the Prostitutes Collective of Victoria and the historic significance of this important organisation, sex workers as a community and the funds we had attracted drew an unhealthy level of interest from the health and community sector, stemming from a perception that sex workers were politically unable to run their own collective, and that the funds we had lobbied for could be better spent by people who were not sex workers. This perception was not helped by the very public failures sex workers were facing within the formal union structures in Victoria at this time, and the new complexities that the licensing system had introduced into sex workers lives generally. The collective was taken over and is now managed by a community health service. This was a political compromise that meant health services to sex workers continue to be delivered, but without the organising focus that the Prostitutes Collective of Victoria had embodied. The new project, called Resourcing for Health and Education (RhED), has elements of peer education but falls short of implementing affirmative action cross the other staff
Red Lights: The Lives of Sex Workers in Postsocialist China .
The karaoke bar has become a ubiquitous symbol of urban China that is often taken to represent evidence of globalization, corruption, and sexuality. Tiantian Zheng’s book Red Lights: The Lives of Sex Workers in Postsocialist China finally helps the karaoke bar and its occupants come alive. Zheng returned to her hometown of Dalian, a port city in northeastern China formerly governed under Japanese colonial rule, to conduct this institutional ethnography of the karaoke bar. Indeed, she lived with hostesses inside a karaoke bar, which resulted in a rich ethnographic experience that allows her to illustrate the true role of karaoke bars in post-Mao Chinese society as well as the roles and identities of the hostesses and clients who sustain its social position. The end product is a description of how the karaoke bar contributes to construction of a new form of entrepreneurial masculinity. In doing so Zheng demonstrates how the karaoke bar, which is antithetical to state ideals, sits at the nexus of masculinity, power, and sex work in a way that serves the goals of the state, wealthy entrepreneurs, and poor, rural migrant women. Much of the story revolves around male and female resistance to dominant powers. In the
Sex Workers Mobilising in Namibia, Reports and Resources
UN consultant Mathew Greenall shares resources about recent work with sex workers in Namibia, including a literature review. ‘In Namibia, as in many other countries, sex workers have limited opportunities to be heard when they want to talk about human rights, and as a result, the discussions are often constrained by the need to relate them to issues like HIV or trafficking. In this context it is heartening to see not only that news outlets in Namibia gave significant coverage to the events organised by local sex worker organisations (front page of The Namibian; articles in New Era and Republiklein), but that the coverage didn’t focus just on the HIV angle, and acknowledged the broader issues. Since the event took place, some of those involved have told me that the feedback from different decision-makers has been very positive, and they are optimistic that we are now seeing a step-change in how some of the media and decision-makers are approaching sex worker rights.’
