The report of the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, released today, recommends the repeal of laws that prohibit consenting adults from buying or selling sex. The recommendations will be a powerful advocacy tool for sex workers at both international and local levels.
Sex workers and allies demand US policy change in lead up to the International AIDS Conference.
This year’s New York State legislative session has ended, and by failing to vote on and pass the “no condoms as evidence of prostitution” bill, lawmakers missed an opportunity to be national and global leaders in ensuring that counterproductive policing and prosecuting practice does not compromise disease prevention and public health.
Rights-based public health measures should seek to protect all people from HIV infection, and provide those who are HIV-positive with the tools to live healthier lives.
![Sex workers organized by Kthi Win. [img src]](http://rhrealitycheck.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/../../files/teaser-images/2012-05-22-mgbako_0-187x125.jpg)
To label and disregard sex workers as “victims” who cannot comprehend their true “enslavement” is condescending, disempowering, and untrue.
Greece has been in the news for prosecuting HIV positive sex workers and posting the women’s photographs on the Internet. The Greek health authorities and many other governments and local authorities that have taken similar actions against sex workers have both the human rights and the public health very wrong.
When deciding whether to charge an individual with prostitution, New York City police officers routinely consider if that person was carrying condoms. Even more disturbing, officers frequently destroy condoms in an attempt to get people not to sell sex for money. Two new reports examine the impact of this misguided law which seems to directly conflict with the city’s ongoing efforts to promote condom use.
This month, one of Belgium’s women’s rights organizations, zij-kant, caused quite a stir with their annual “Equal Pay Day” message. Instead of merely high-lighting that women in Belgium, on average, earn 22 percent less than men, the organization launched a video starring porn actress Sasha Grey with the message “Porn is about the only way women can earn more than men—find a better alternative.”
Sex workers deserve the basic respect and protection from violence that each nation owes its citizens. But in many settings, police abuse of sex workers receives scant public attention despite its entrenched global reality.
A federal court today ruled that the government cannot force U.S. organizations to “denounce” prositution and sex trafficking as a condition for recieving international HIV and AIDS funding. The ruling applies only to U.S.-based non-governmental organizations and does not relieve non-U.S. organizations recieving U.S. funds from being subject to restrictions.
