Log in
" Sex Workers Achieve MDGs 2010" 31 Aug 2010
Elena Jeffreys is a sex worker in Australia and is also the President of Scarlet Alliance, Australian Sex Workers Association.
“Sex workers support Ban Ki-Moon's call for the repeal of criminal laws that create barriers to effective HIV prevention– now nation states need to step up to the challenge,” Elena Jeffreys told the conference.
- Treat sex work as work
- Remove police from sex worker regulation
- Prevent, rather than prosecute, trafficking & HIV
“Sex workers are central to achieving MDGs in developing countries; sex worker NGOs provide safe spaces for sex workers, outreach and access to Occupational Health and Safety (including condoms),” Elena said to the UN Conference today.
Sex worker leaders across the world do advocacy and representation demanding the decriminalisation of sex work as a way of expanding sex worker human rights and improving access to civil institutions and health.
Elena is at the UN Department of Public Information Non-Government Organisation conference advocating on behalf of sex workers as a community affected by HIV and trafficking, “Our voices are central to a human rights based response. Sex work is work, and deserves to be treated as such; this is the basis of effective human rights programs, Elena told the main conference floor during RoundTable II Equity, Rights and Progress towards the MDG’s. “Only decriminalisation of sex work can deliver true human rights to sex workers.”
Sex worker NGO’s in Asia and the Pacific are leading the world in HIV and trafficking prevention. Organisations including Scarlet Alliance Australian Sex Workers Association, Empower Foundation for sex workers in Thailand, Zi Teng in Hong Kong, Womens Network for Unity in Cambodia and Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee from Kolkata in India, OPSI in Indonesia and Friends Frangipani in Papua New Guinea, among others, advocate for decriminalisation of sex work.
WHERE: UNDPI/NGO Conference Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre