17 December, Press-conference.

Kiev - Irina Mishina of UHRA, SWAN member in Ukraine:

"We do not demand some king of special rights for sex workers. We demand provision of basic constitutional rights and freedoms and end to violence".

View video reportage here

read more

A review of press-conference by independent journalist

read more

10.11.2008

100TV, Russia

read more

Public discussion on legalization of prostitution has gained new strengths in the last few months in Bulgaria. Events that attracted public and political attention were two explosions and shooting in striptease bars in Sofia.

------

Those events were followed by a series of media reports about underground prostitution and the imminent need for some sort of legal regulation in the field. Many public figures engaged with the issues including representatives of HESED, SWAN member from Bulgaria.

read more

Sex workers in Skopje, capital of Macedonia, issued this winter first two numbers of a community newsletter entitled “From us to us”.

-----

As its title suggests, the newsletter is written by sex workers and for sex workers and tackles community life, daily issues and problems. The writers and editors are members of the sex workers’ self-support group STAR established a year ago.

read more

Source: DPA -- Ukrainian law enforcers are attempting to dampen growing prostitution by writing unpleasant notes to the parents of arrested streetwalkers, the Sehodnia newspaper reports.

----- 

The letter-writing campaign is aimed at reducing sex-for-hire in the former Soviet republic by bringing parental pressure to bear on prostitutes, said Aleksey Lazarenko, an Internal Ministry spokesman.

read more

Talking about the ongoing preparations for the UEFA Euro Soccer Championship that will take place in 2012 in Poland and Ukraine, Ukrainian Minister of Public Health Vasiliy Knizaiewicz recently stated that he supports legalization of prostitution.

------

read more

Gennady Davidko, Belarus MP, says that prostitution should be legalized and children given sexual education in the form of family viewing of porn movies.

------

read more

In the latest issue of the SWAN News we wrote about the seminar on sex work organized in September for media reporters in Slovakia. In the meantime, similar seminars were organized in November in Macedonia and Serbia.

------

The aim of the seminars was to present to the media the issues pertaining sex work in a different way and to ultimately contribute to better quality of media coverage of sex work and less sensationalism in the media.

read more

More then 30 sex workers, clients, mediators and one social worker from HOPS, SWAN member from Macedonia, detained in a massive raid; involuntary STI tests performed; civil society says human rights seriously violated

read more

SWAN members have sent letters of protest to Macedonian government. But your support is also needed. Please download the letter of support here, put your logo, sign, and fax or email to the listed officials. Thank you! More
----------

read more

In an ongoing court battle to protect freedom of speech and promote effective public health policy, a US federal judge on August 8 extended free speech protection to a broad range of groups working to combat the AIDS epidemic, ruling they are not obliged to declare support to programs targeting sex workers.

-----

read more

Here is what the Coalition for protection and promotion of sexual and health rights of marginalized communities has done so far in the follow-up of the action by the Macedonian police.

---------

read more

November 23, 2008 – “Maybe the NGOs think that the revolt of the citizens is irrelevant, and it is “normal” to offer oral sex to a 15-year old, for a certain amount of money” – is only one of the questions raised in the official statement by the Macedonian Ministry of Interior, published on their web site and released to the Media on November 28.
------

Following is the integral Statement:

read more

On 20-25 October 2008 Tais Plus, SWAN member from Kyrgyzstan presented its Shadow Report on the implementation of UN CEDAW (Convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women) by the Kyrgyz Republic at the 42nd CEDAW session in Geneva, Switzerland.
-------

Together with other representatives of women’s organizations from Kyrgyzstan, Tais Plus raised the awareness of the CEDAW Committee members on the real situation of women in Kyrgyzstan.

read more

Hi everyone! I created a group on Facebook for the 17th of December.

------

The basic idea is that everyone changes their profile picture on Facebook to a red umbrella as a statement for the 17th of December, like a one day online demo on one of the largest social-networking sites! Of course Myspace, Orkut, Friendster, Hyves, etc. can join in, but since I am not on those websites others will need to spearhead that.

read more

A day after a Belgrade tabloid published a front-page story entitled “American whore to teach Serbian students” organizers cancelled the round table discussion that was supposed to take place at the faculty of Philosophy of the Belgrade University. The article and the ban caused a heated public debate and generally positive media articles about sex work and the particular case.
---------

read more

Here are some of the echoes of the cancelled event in Belgrade, among them by Professor Viktorija Cucic of JAZAS, SWAN member from Belgrade and Vinaigrette, one of the sex workers who were to participate at the round table.
------

Sex workers in Serbia are institutionally totally unprotected – claims an article published on the B92 news portal. They are beaten up by their clients and pimps alike.

read more

C.A. Odyseus, SWAN member from Slovakia, organized the media sensitization event with a programmatic help from SWAN and financial support from the Slovak branch of the Open Society Fund. The aim of the seminar was to sensitize media to the issues pertaining sex work and to ultimately contribute to better quality of media coverage of sex work and less sensationalism.

read more

SWAN News was one of the first projects to start once the SWAN network was created in 2006. Over the years the newsletter has been constantly growing, new columns were introduced and distribution expanded.

read more