Today Derek Demeri, representing SWOP USA, New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance and the Best Practices Policy Project, is attending a civil society hearing convened by the United Nations as part of the preparatory process towards a “high level meeting on HIV/AIDS” that will be held later this year in June. The official purpose of this meeting is to “provide civil society and all relevant stakeholders an opportunity to contribute to the ongoing preparations in a day of interactive panel discussions with Member States and representatives from civil society, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, organizations and networks representing people living with HIV, women, adolescents and young persons and other relevant stakeholders.” For sex worker rights representatives from the United States and beyond, this meeting is another opportunity to raise red umbrellas and state the obvious truth that we cannot “end AIDS” without full and meaningful participation of sex workers in all aspects of policy, HIV service provision, leadership and more. The New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance and the Best Practices Policy Project have created a set of talking points for use during today’s meetings.
BPPP and NJRUA note that, “globally only a tiny portion of all funding for HIV prevention and treatment activities is given to sex worker-led organizations. This practice must immediately change because we cannot end AIDS without sex workers as equal partners in this effort.” Within the United States sex worker rights organizations, “are also highly marginalized from funding and other resources, a situation made far worse because of the government’s failure to include any approaches to address sex work and HIV in the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. The US government must adopt a scientifically based rights approach to working with sex workers and provide adequate funding for sex worker led organizations to implement this approach.”
TWEET IT OUT: Nothing About Us Without Us, Decriminalize #sexwork to #endHIV #HLM2016AIDS
Direct HIV $ to #sexworkers in all National HIV Strategies, end the silence #UnitedStates about #sexworkerrights #HLM2016AIDS
VIEW THE UN Civil Society hearing online.
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