sex workers

Asia Pacific

PATTAYA, Thailand, 15 October 2010 – At the first-ever Asia-Pacific consultation on HIV and sex work, sex workers, government officials and United Nations participants emphasized the need for urgent action to increase focus and positioning of sex work within HIV responses in the region. Close to 150 delegates from eight countries (China, Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea and Thailand) met in Pattaya, Thailand, to form partnerships and review policies and laws that keep sex workers from accessing HIV services and sexual and reproductive health services. “Sex work interventions must be central to scaling up the HIV response,

Fiji

A report published today by the University of NSW says sex workers, especially in Lautoka, the centre of Fiji’s sugar industry, north of Nadi, have been rounded up by the military and subjected to sleep deprivation, humiliation and forced physical labour. Karen McMillan, a researcher with the International HIV Research Group at UNSW, said the sex workers were held in outdoor pens at an army base, woken every three hours and made to do duck-walks and squat in the mud.

violence

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)

ASWA

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

making sex work safe

Making Sex Work Safe was developed by sex workers from the early International Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP). It was written by Paulo Longo and Cheryl Overs. It provides global perspectives on information about sex workers, analysis of law and policy and guidance about how to ensure that programmes on sex work are rights based and grounded in communities.

Thailand; HIV'

Beginning in the late 1980s, the HIV epidemic increased rapidly in Thailand, particularly in the upper Northern region [1, 2]. In 1990‐91, soon after it was observed that the HIV epidemic was spreading among injecting drug users and sex workers, the government acted decisively, launching a nationwide campaign to reduce HIV transmission. Theme: Human Rights and Law

Zimbabwe

This article describes the impact of sex work law and police brutality on sex workers in Zimbabwe Locked in a filthy cell that was built for eight inmates, but filled with more than 25 women, Nyasha Maphosa, 32, a sex worker based in the town of Gokwe in the Midlands province, writhes in agony as the torture of the previous night takes its toll on her diminutive figure. She has endured 48 hours of detention after being picked up by the Zimbabwe Republic Police patrol team. The charge: loitering for the purposes of prostitution.

antiretroviral treatment

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

Words from the Regional Coordinator of ASWA

“We are here! We are here as brothers and sisters, moms and dads, sons and daughters some of us even grandparents, but WE ARE HERE!” These were the words I spoke at the opening of the 1st African sex workers conference in Johannesburg 3 years ago and now I say them again, “WE ARE HERE!” We are the African Sex Worker Alliance, from South African to Kenya to Nigeria, we are everywhere. Ready to be heard, seen and recognized. ASWA has been natured and mothered, she has crawled, and taken baby steps, fell along the way but now she is

SEX WORK IS LEGAL IN BANGALDESH

Brothel evictions last year sparked angry protests The Bangladeshi High Court has ruled that prostitution as a livelihood is not illegal. Lawyers say the judgement is highly unusual because it makes Bangladesh one of the few Islamic countries which do not ban prostitution. This judgement means that prostitutes in Bangladesh now have the legal authority to practise their trade. The judges made their comments as the court was ruling in a case brought by over 100 sex workers who have been in homes for vagrants since July last year, when two brothels on the outskirts of Dhaka were closed down

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