Women's Health, Studies, Feminism and Ethics
Sex Work: United Nations Agencies and
Documents
Office of the Secretary-General
I urge all countries
to remove punitive laws, policies and practices that hamper the AIDS response,
including travel restrictions against people living with HIV. Successful AIDS
responses do not punish people; they protect them.
In many countries,
legal frameworks institutionalize discrimination against groups most at risk.
Yet discrimination against sex workers, drug users and men who have sex with
men only fuels the epidemic and prevents cost-effective interventions. We must
ensure that AIDS responses are based on evidence, not ideology, and reach those
most in need and most affected. [1]
Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948
23.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to
just and favourable conditions of work and to protection
against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for
equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable
remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human
dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the
protection of his interests.
WHO: World Health
Organization
Ottawa Charter on Health Promotion
1986
Health promotion is the
process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their
health. To reach a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, an
individual or group must be able to identify and to realize aspirations, to
satisfy needs, and to change or cope with the environment. Health is,
therefore, seen as a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living.
Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well
as physical capacities. Therefore, health promotion is not just the
responsibility of the health sector, but goes beyond healthy life-styles to
well-being.
Health promotion
policy requires the identification of obstacles to the adoption of healthy
public policies in non-health sectors, and ways of removing them. The aim must
be to make the healthier choice the easier choice for policy makers as well.
Western Pacific Office: Sex Work in
Asia 2001 (pdf)
Commentary. Ahmad: Call for decriminalisation
of prostitution in Asia. Lancet 2001 (pdf)
Redefining AIDS in ASIA 2008 (pdf)
UNFPA: United Nations Population Fund
Advisory Group on
Sex Work
UNAIDS: Joint United
Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
Handbook for Legislators on HIV/AIDS, Law and Human
Rights 1999 (pdf)[3]
UNAIDS HIV/AIDS and Human Rights: The violence of stigmatisation
2003 (pdf)
UNAIDS Guidance Note on HIV and Sex Work April 2007 (pdf)[4]
Global Working Group on HIV and Sex Work Policy
response. Sept 2007 (pdf)
International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights 2006
Resource Pack on Gender and HIV/AIDS: 9. Sex Work UNFPA 2006
Hope to reality: transforming the Asia–Pacific AIDS response.
August 10 2009
Reference Group on HIV/AIDS and
Human Rights
2nd Meeting, Geneva August 2003 (pdf)
Meena Saraswathi Seshu.
Supporting Document: The violence of stigmatization (pdf)
Research project during the World Cup
gathers data on sex workers and HIV. July 12 2010
International Labour Organisation
(ILO)
Economic and social bases of
prostitution in Southeast Asia 1998 (Abstract: Word)[5]
(ILO Summary: Sex
industry assuming massive proportions in Southeast Asia)
United Nations Development Programme
Independent Commission on
AIDS and Law
UNIFEM: United Nations Development Fund for Women
Division for the Advancement of
Women[6]
Africa/Asia Parliamentarian Forum on
Human Security and Gender 2002
Report from the Best Practices Policy Project October 14, 2005 (pdf)
Commission on the Status of Women
The HIV/AIDS pandemic and
its gender implications Expert Group Meeting 2000 (pdf)
Gender, HIV/AIDS, and Human Security 2001
UNICEF: United Nations Chidren's Fund
Children and Prostitution 1996
See also:
for
UN
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons
UN-INSTRAW (International Research and Training Institute for the
Advancement of Women)
Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking
(UN.GIFT)
Last
updated: June 1, 2011
Dr Michael Goodyear,
For any problems,
please contact: mgoodyear@dal.ca