Happy Birthday Scarlet Alliance!
Online - Cheryl Overs and Valerie Scott will respond to questions about sex work, HIV and human rights
AIDSLEX will host an “Ask the Expert” session on sex work with Cheryl Overs and Valerie Scott. They will respond to user questions on the human rights of sex workers and on how laws can support efforts to respond to the HIV epidemic, including providing HIV prevention and health care services to sex workers. Users are also invited to pose questions concerning an Ontario court ruling in September 2010 in which sections of Canada’s Criminal Code related to sex work were deemed unconstitutional.
Cheryl Overs is a noted advocate for the rights of sex workers and has written widely on the subject. Valerie Scott is Executive Director of Sex Professionals of Canada (/www.spoc.ca/), which campaigns for the rights of sex workers. She was one of the applicants in the Ontario Superior Court case. More information on that ruling can be found here.
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Geneva - earlier this month sex work advocates from Best Practices Policy Project, Desiree Alliance, and the Sexual Rights Initiative in the U.S. presented a report as part of the Report on The United States of America 9th Round of the Universal Periodic Review – November 2010. The report focuses on "civil and human rights violations of those engaged, or perceived to be engaged, in sexual trade and sex work in the U.S."
"Sex workers' vulnerability to human rights abuses acknowledged at the UN
US sex worker organizations, organizations working with people in the sex trade and people affected by anti-prostitutioni policies prepared a report to the Universal Periodic Review process at the Human Rights Commission at the UN in Geneva. As a result of the report and efforts advocating on behalf of the report this last week at the UN, Friday November 5, 2010 Uruguay recommended that the US pay attention to the special vulnerability to violence and rights abuses of sex workers. The recommendation language in Spanish is ...teniendo presente además la especial vulnerabilidad a la violencia y abusos de los derechos humanos de los trabajadores sexuales."
This is a major victory for a wide variety of communities affected by policing, anti-prostitution policies and human rights abuses because of engagement in sex work (or presumed engagement in sex work)." From SWOP USA
Also see article Sex work in the US: a global human rights issue By Allyn Gaestel
and article Report: Sex Workers Face Widespread Abuses of Civil and Human Rights By Penelope Saunders
Netherlands - Former sex worker Metje Blaak worked with sex workers for a project of the Red Thread "Colleagues and Carrier" to create photographs of their work places. The show can be seen at gallery Vrienden van Bavink on the Gelderse Kade in Amsterdam until 27 November 2010.
7 photos can be seen here on the Het Parool website gallery
Also see Het Parool article (NL)
South Africa - Have you seen what the sex workers from Sisonke Sex Workers Network have been doing in collaboration with SWEAT South Africa? A recently launched the website Decriminalise! A web resource for the campaign to decriminalise sex work in South Africa provides a forum to discuss the issues related to sex work and to lobby for decriminalisation. One section Sex workers speak is a great place to gain some understanding of what sex workers are saying.
More great news from Africa - African Sex Worker Alliance Statement:
"Delegates from the African Sex Worker Alliance (ASWA) and a church leader from Nigeria gathered in Pretoria from the 28th September to 10th October for a second historic meeting as a follow up to the first ever African sex worker lead conference in February 2009." Read the rest of this article and the Statement on the PLRI website.
