Advancing Global Advocacy on Sex Workers' Health and Human Rights

OSI's Sexual Health and Rights Project hosted a meeting entitled "Advancing Global Advocacy on Sex Workers' Health and Human Rights." Objectives, selected through a broad consultation process, included the following:

• developing global advocacy campaigns and media messages around the most pressing sex worker health and rights issues;
• strengthening communication capacity, sharing of resources, and campaigning through improved information technology tools;
• identifying barriers and opportunities to ensuring that sex workers are at the forefront of all service and policy initiatives that affect their health and rights;
• strategizing how to better involve allies in advocacy campaigns.

The 35 attendees encompassed female, male, and transgender sex worker health and rights advocates from 20 countries, including Argentina, Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Thailand, and Ukraine. Presentations and discussions were translated into 7 different languages.

Participants prioritized the need to address human rights abuses committed in the name of "assisting sex workers." The key issue selected for global campaigning was the impact of "raid and rescue" interventions undertaken by police, anti-trafficking organizations, and abolitionist groups. Important concerns included the conflation of sex work with human trafficking and immigrant rights issues; detention, deportation and repatriation practices targeting those caught in raids that result in serious human rights infringements; donor funding for anti-trafficking interventions that do not support a human rights approach; and the important role sex workers can play in reducing the vulnerability and exploitation of underage and trafficked persons who are forced into prostitution.

An important component of the meeting was discussing how to use information and communications technology (ICT) to further advocacy goals. SHARP hired a team of ICT consultants to facilitate these discussions, which included a combination of members strong in using ICT for advocacy and familiar with the sex worker rights community. Prior to the meeting, they worked together on an ICT survey of global sex worker rights organizations which lead to the development of curricula and training materials to meet participant's needs.

Below are links to the meeting agenda, a synopsis of the ICT survey, and a worksheet highlighting useful ICT tools for sex worker rights activists. A report on the meeting and an ICT needs-assessment based on the survey, meeting, and follow-up consultations will be available in summer 2007. For more information, please contact Rachel Thomas at rthomas@sorosny.org.

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