Commercial Sex and Health in the Second Decade of HIV

Geneva Resolutions

1. Donors must recognise the value of networking and make funds available to appropriate networks of sex work projects at global, regional and country level. Appropriate networks are those which recognise commercial sex as valid employment and sex workers right to self determine.

2. Those conducting research concerning sex work rarely use epidemiological methods of evaluation of such projects, and when used are insufficient. Researchers must develop a method of evaluation that is based on sex worker perceptions of project success.

3. This Community Symposium expresses great concern and condemns the actions of the Hungarian police in Csongrad County that have resulted in greater local STD/HIV risk. These actions include arrests and harassment such that sex workers are forced to sell unsafe sex to meet fines and avoid imprisonment.

   This requires working long hours so sex workers are prevented from accessing sexual health services. We appeal to all regulatory authorities to prohibit any act of policing that may impact negatively on HIV prevention amongst sex workers and to fund programs for police education.

4. Government must explore means to reduce the reliance of transgenders on sex work as their sole source of income and enact laws which provide a non discriminatory environment for transgender citizenship.

5. Those carrying out HIV and STD prevention work amongst sex workers must recognise that such work must be done concurrently for clients.

Margaret Duckett
Community Programming Coordinator
12th World AIDS Conference 1998
94, rue des Eaux-Vives, CH-1207,
Geneva, Switzerland
Tel: (+41 22) 737 3344
Fax: (+41 22) 700 3311
Email: duckett@AIDS98.ch
Web: http://www.aids98.ch