Barbara Cole

p. 2.

Sex-workers share their stories

THE red light and the underwear on the table gave the game away. Not that the three sex-workers "manning" the stand at the exhibition running at the 13^th International Aids Conference in Durban were denying what they do for a living.

In fact, former Durbanite Mr Shane Hart-Petzer and his Australian associate, Miss Sue Metzenrath, were at the exhibition in their representative capacities. Hart-Petzer is the director of the Network For Sex Work Projects, an umbrella organisation for sex-workers' rights around the world. It had moved from London to Cape Town to focus on sex-worker issues in the developing world.

Metzenrath is with Scarlett Alliance, an Australian sex-workers' rights organisation. She is also on the steering committee of the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers.

There were probably about 30 sex-worker delegates at the conference, Hart-Petzer and Metzenrath said.

They were not planning to swop notes about their work, or discuss how many clients they had $#151; or their fun stories. Mind you Metzenrath grinned: "I did pretty well on the plane over."

The flight to South Africa had lasted 30 hours, and "10 hours were quite lucrative," she confided.

"Yes," she went on, "it was a profitable trip." Then, instead of going into more detail, she spoke about their role at the Aids conference. "We are here for serious business," she said.

It was important to involve prostitutes at international conferences, they both said. Prostitutes could network at an international level for changes in prostitution and the law.

"We also want the right to travel freely. Many countries — the Untied States, Japan and China, for instance — have entry restrictions for sex-workers," said Metzenrath. The network is to present an "International Gathering of Sex Work Projects" in Durban on Thursday night.