SWAN
3rd SWAN network meeting a great success in Ohrid
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The meeting brought together 32 participants from 16 countries with the aim to exchange experience, share problems and find solutions, renew and strengthen the partnership ties and get to know new network members better.
The aim of the meeting was to bring together sex worker activists and NGOs working on sex work issues in the SWAN region and in neighboring countries to discuss further strategies of the Network and its cooperation with other organizations to share their experience. Special focus was placed on developing a set of ways to address stigmatization and violence against sex workers and to develop a plan to document and report human rights abuse in the context of sex work in Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia (ECE/CA).
Categories: Sex Worker Advocacy
„You Are Not Alone, Together We Are Stronger”
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The Ohrid network meeting was preceded by an activists’ meeting. 18 sex worker activists turned the meeting room into an art workshop and a cafeteria to discuss issues and personal experience around sex work in their countries.
In September 2009 SWAN’s third network meeting in Ohrid was preceded by a meeting of 18 sex worker activists from Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia. They gathered to participate in an advocacy training and to get to know each other better before the “bigger” meeting started. This training involved not only local sex workers from different parts of the country, but also hosted 13 sex workers from other countries of SWAN region. The language gap did not stop or discourage the participants from sharing their positive experience and ideas.
Categories: Sex Worker Advocacy
Report on the Ohrid Meeting in Hetérák
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(translated from Hungarian)
The participants included sex workers and representatives of organizations promoting sex workers’ rights from 16 countries . When checking in it was already clear that we were about to have a training of relaxed atmosphere with a team of nice, intelligent and funny people. The level of the hotel service further raised our mood.
During the first two days, sex workers from different countries shared their experiences and what they had achieved in terms of sex workers’ rights. We met the Macedonian sponsors, HOPS, STAR, and STAR’s Macedonian newsletter for and about sex workers. (Which inspired us to make our own Haeteras newsletter.)
Categories: Sex Worker Advocacy
Media debate on sex work in Hungary
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After a few years of relative silence on sex work legislation in the Hungarian media, the debate regained momentum this summer.
Péter Sárosi, the Drug Policy Director of HCLU challenged the end-demand legislation proposal of MONA (a Hungarian NGO that promotes gender equality and aims to uncover the unfair or inferior treatment of women) and other anti-trafficking organizations. In a newspaper article Sárosi pointed out that even if sex work in Hungary is de jure legal, street sex workers are often harassed by the police, hundreds of them are arrested each month because municipalities reject designating tolerance-zones as the law orders. He called for the inclusion of sex workers into political decision making.
Categories: Sex Worker Advocacy
Sex Workers’ Association in Hungary Start Newsletter
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The newsletter is titled Hetaeras (Hetérák) after the elite mistresses in ancient Greece who alone, among all Greek women, were allowed to manage their own affairs. We translated an article on an opinion poll on sex work in Hungary.
Among other topics, the first issue deals with the entrepreneur’s license, a prerequisite for sex workers to operate legally in Hungary. Following is a brief summary of another article on how sex work is viewed by the general public in Hungary.
Sex Workers’ Association in Hungary and Fact Institute conducted a joint survey to map views held by the general public on sex workers. The phone survey was done on a sample representing the adult population of Hungary in terms of sex, age, education and location of residence.
Categories: Sex Worker Advocacy
Kyrgyzstan: A Case Story – transgender migrant sexworker
The following story was documented and shared at the 24th Program Coordinating Board (UNAIDS) Meeting, Thematic Segment People on the Move in June of 2009 by Gulnara Kurmanova of Tais Plus, a SWAN member from Kyrgyzstan with the assistance from Selbi Jumayeva and published on the blog of Laura Agustin Border Thinking on Migration, Trafficking and Commercial Sex. The story tells about the surviving of sex workers - and in particular of migrant transgender sex workers - on the streets of Bishkek.
About me: My name is Gulnara Kurmanova. I have worked in HIV programs in partnership with sex workers in Kyrgyz Republic, Central Asia, since 1997. We actively support sex workers’ empowerment and self-organization. I would like to present a story documented by me in my own country.
Categories: Sex Worker Advocacy