INDIA: After being denied visas to travel to the US to attend the annual International AIDS Conference, sex workers from around the world have been staging a parallel conference in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata

Record ID: 335351

  • Title: INDIA: After being denied visas to travel to the US to attend the annual International AIDS Conference, sex workers from around the world have been staging a parallel conference in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata
  • Date: 26th July 2012
  • Summary: KOLKATA, WEST BENGAL, INDIA ) (JULY 24, 2012) (REUTERS) SEX WORKERS STAGE A RALLY THROUGH THE STREETS OF KOLKATA CHANTING: "SEX WORKERS' RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS" TOP VIEW OF THE SEX WORKERS' PROCESSION PASSING THROUGH THE NARROW LANES OF KOLKATA SEX WORKERS, CARRYING BANNERS AND RED COLOURED UMBRELLAS, WALKING THROUGH THE WINDING LANES GROUP OF GIRLS WATCHING THE PROCESSIO
  • Embargoed: 10th August 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: India
  • Country: India
  • Topics: General,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA352X9ZPELPQWPGJ0VYNNM2C59
  • Story Text: Sex workers marched down the narrow streets of Kolkata's Sonagachi area on Thursday (July 26) to protest their absence at an international AIDS conference being held in the U.S.
    In the global battle against HIV/AIDS, it is these people who are a crucial link in a chain of infection that some 20,000 experts gathered in Washington this week are debating how to break -- but without having sex workers there.
    But thanks to U.S. travel restrictions on visas for sex workers, thousands of them have been unable to attend the annual International AIDS Conference (IAC), the world's largest forum to discuss policy on fighting the deadly virus.
    In protest, sex workers from around the world have been staging a parallel conference in Kolkata - a five-day "Sex Worker Freedom Festival" to demand an end to the discrimination many face due to their profession.
    On Tuesday, more than 5,000 sex workers - including heavily made-up Indian transgenders dressed in wigs and saris, bare-chested African male sex workers, and female sex workers from Mexico in hot pants - walked through the streets of Kolkata, carrying banners and chanting "U.S. government shame on you" and "Sex work is work".

    "Sex workers constitute one of the most important stakeholders in the HIV intervention programme. In absence of these communities, I believe that, no fruitful discussions could be made. so, It is a truncated conference. To make it a better one we decided we should organize it in Kolkata, a parallel conference," said Samarajit Jana from the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC), an Indian collective of 65,000 sex workers, and one of the organisers of the Kolkata conference.
    He added that it was a proven fact that success in controlling transmission amongst sex workers can secure countries from the epidemic.
    According to a March study in the British medical journal, The Lancet, female sex workers are 13.5 percent more likely to be infected by the HIV/AIDS virus than other women of reproductive age in low and middle income countries.
    Over the last five days, almost 1,000 sex workers from India and 42 other nations including Kenya, Mexico, Uganda, China and Indonesia have joined in video links with Washington and discussed greater access to drugs, promoting safe sex, and loopholes in HIV/AIDS policies and practices.
    The United States is hosting the annual IAC for the first time in 20 years, after President Barack Obama lifted a travel ban on HIV-positive people in 2010.
    But the country's immigration policy still states that a history of drug use or prostitution in the last 10 years is a potential cause for denial of a visa.
    Washington officials defend the policy, saying this is not a blanket ban.
    But sex workers and activists have termed it an eye-wash. Few sex workers are given waivers, and even then, it is often for a very short period of stay, they say.
    In Kolkata, they are also using the U.S. travel ban to highlight the wider issue of discrimination against sex workers and are demand the decriminalisation of the trade.

    "We demand decriminalization worldwide, free migration, access to health services and many other freedoms. That is what we are standing for and fighting for," said Arian, a 44-year-old sex worker from Germany who said she has also been fighting for the rights of sex workers to get them access to better quality living.
    Often linked to human trafficking and moral values, sex work is illegal in most countries across the world, barring a few such as Singapore, Holland and Germany.
    Many gender rights groups argue against it being decriminalised, saying that millions of young girls and women are forced into the trade every year - kidnapped or lured and then sold as sexual slaves to the highest bidder.
    Legalising it, they say, will encourage trafficking and also promote patriarchal attitudes which seek to subjugate women.
    Meanwhile, in the squalid lanes of Sonagachi, one of Asia's largest red light districts in the old quarters of this bustling eastern Indian city, their eyes lined with kohl and lips painted red, women in colourful, sequinned saris line the maze-like lanes.
    In front of open sewers, they chat on mobile phones and flirt with customers, who follow them into the dark doorways of decrepit brothels, up winding staircases into tiny rooms with just a bed, television and posters of Hindu gods on the walls.
    While sex workers at the Kolkata conference agree that trafficking is an issue, they add there are many like them,who willingly sell sexual services and deserve rights like any other worker.
    They want it to be legalized to escape routine harassment at the hands of police, mobs, and touts.

    "Sex workers are picked up by the police, first they are forcibly put in the lock-up and then they are raped in the night, they are pulled up by their hair and then thrown out of the lock-up. This is the biggest problem for sex workers," said 36-year-old Sapna Gayan, one of 12,000 sex workers in Sonagachi, in the east Indian city of Kolkata.
    Decriminalising it will give them a level of protection under the law and help remove the stigma associated with the profession, Gayan said.
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