A post by NGO Delegate Rathi Ramanathan (Asia and the Pacific)

Advocacy for sex workers’ rights is a challenge: not only is constructive dialogue impeded because the language is contested, but since sex worker rights continue to be politicised, any positive changes to laws are difficult to achieve. Sex workers from the Global Sex Workers Project successfully lobbied for the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (the Palermo Protocol)  to replace the term ‘prostitute’ with ’sex worker’. More than mere political correctness, this shift in language had the important effect of moving global understandings of sex worker rights towards a labour rights framework that could potentially resolve many of the problems faced by sex workers. This language also questions the stigma of sex work because it represents greater recognition of sex workers as rights bearers with the capacity to make their own choices.

Report and recommendations from the first Asia and the Pacific Regional Consultation on HIV and Sex Work

“This report reflects the voices and opinions of 140 participants, including resource persons and sex workers, at the first Asia and the Pacific Regional Consultation on HIV and Sex Work, held on October 2010 in Pattaya, Thailand. It covers critical components of the HIV and sex work responses, and four key areas – namely, creating an enabling legal and policy environment, ensuring sexual and reproductive health and rights, eliminating violence against sex workers, and addressing migration and mobility in the context of HIV and sex work.