The Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW) was
formed in 1994 to facilitate participation and leadership
of sex workers in policies and decisions that affect them. It
was started by organisations working on health and human
rights in Asia such as Empower Foundation, Durbar Mahila
Samanwaya Committee, Pink Triangle Foundation, Scarlet
Alliance Australia and Sweetly Japan. APNSW has been a
major space to advocate for the rights of sex workers and
generate debate and dialogue.
The aims of the network are towards sharing information
among organisations which provide services to people
who work in the sex industry, raise awareness on health
and welfare needs of sex workers, advocate at regional and
global levels for policies and action to further the human
rights of sex workers including the right to health and a
safe working environment free from abuse, violence and
discrimination. They also attempt to make the voices of sex
workers heard in the global arena. The coalition helps to
network and maintain relationships with service providers,
sex work organisations and relevant international
institutions and agencies and sex workers.
One of the main issues that the network raises is that of
stigma and discrimination that sex workers face in all
walks of life. They contend ‘sex work as work’. Although
they have had to deal with a considerable amount of
backlash when they are misrepresented as a network
which excuses or maybe even promotes abuse, this kind of
misrepresentation has reduced over the years. They aim to
represent issues of sex workers rights in international and
regional forums and conferences such as the World Social
Forum, the International Network of Sex Work Projects,
Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV (APN+),
the International Lesbian and Gay Association and the Asia
Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health.
Through advocacy and campaigns they aim to challenge the
assumptions of sex workers as only women and attempt
to represent issues of men and transgender people in
sex work as well. The network endeavors to encourage
leadership among male, female and transgender sex
workers. Recently, APNSW has formed a network of
transgender activists that will monitor and activate on
transgender health and human rights issues and one of the
main contentions they are working on is the right to self
determination of transgender people and not be labeled as
men within the ‘MSM’ framework.
The conflation of trafficking with sex work has also been
a grey area with the automatic assumption that all sex
workers have entered the profession through trafficking.
Through their work APNSW questions, challenges and
creates awareness on how the collusion between sex work
and trafficking is detrimental to the rights of sex workers.
Recently, member organizations of APNSW have actively
started forming self regulatory boards to look at issues of
trafficking within sex work.
A large majority of sex workers are vulnerable to HIV and
yet the thrust of many State programs on HIV concentrates
on treating sex workers as vectors to the infection ratherthan making treatment and health services accessible and
affordable to sex workers. APNSW is now working as part
of the Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) Expert
Working Group to develop a new model policy to show
what sex workers really need in HIV prevention, treatment
and policy reform.
UNFPA and UNAIDS have been developing a new policy
or ‘guidance note’ on sex work for the last year also known
as ‘the three pillars’. Although sex worker networks
have given their views on what good HIV policy for sex
workers should include in a number of consultations, this
has not been included in the policy. The guidance note is
led by notions of either getting women out of sex work
or preventing women from joining sex work or men from
being clients of sex workers. APNSW organised sex worker
networks to respond to this by working with other NGOs
to oppose the new policy at the UNAIDS Programme
Coordination Board meeting in Geneva in May 2007.
The NSWP has opposed the guidance note on three counts
which are: that the note does not address adequately the
human rights of the sex workers, the guidance recommends
an inadequate and unbalanced response to HIV care and
prevention and thirdly, the overall tone of the document
implies that a majority of sex work is an abuse and therefore
worthy of abolition. This they have found is contrary to
the dignity of sex work and sex workers. The coalition of
sex workers has therefore demanded that this note not be
published at all and even if it were to be published, the
dissent of the sex workers must be clearly noted.
APNSW aims to create awareness among people about
sex work as a means of livelihood and therefore demands
decriminalisation. It stresses upon the discriminatory laws
in many countries in Asia and the Pacific and how that
is restrictive to the health and well-being of many sex
workers. Decriminalisation of sex work has been suggested
as one of the best ways to ensure safety and promote the
rights of sex workers. Among the other things they demand
for are that the rights of sex workers are respected and
there should be access to easily affordable health services
for sex workers with a focus on choice and confidentiality.
APNSW has also been vocal against unethical drug trials
with sex worker subjects.
The APNSW is governed by a core group and an advisory
board that is elected every two years. Khartini Slamah based
in Malaysia is the co-ordinator of APNSW. She moderates
a listserve, provides input to relevant policy forums,
coordinates participation in events and mentors emerging
projects and leaders. She also chairs the International
Network of Sex Work Projects.
The network strives to bring issues of discrimination and
oppression on sex workers out in the open. It protests
against and compels people to rethink State programmes
such as the 100% condom use campaigns which do not
take into consideration the reality of the lives of sex
workers. More information about APNSW is available at
http://www.apnsw.org.
