SEX WORK AND THE LAW - HIV/AIDS Data Hub

support and services, and the cessation of information and HIV prevention workshops
for sex workers.
Sex worker sense of vulnerability has resulted in a reluctance to engage in advocacy.
Most sex worker organisations are feeling more embattled, struggling with the
demands of organisation and registration on their limited resources, and are reducing
their activities. Targeting of recognisable sex workers has made new sex workers
reluctant to associate with more experienced sex workers and advocates…Carrying a
large amount of condoms and providing outreach services in general are considered
to be more risky and are no longer undertaken on any regular basis.
Fiji
Access to sexual health services such as HIV and STI testing and treatment has been
compromised. The few programs actively encouraging and facilitating access have
ceased, and now only mainstream services are available. Publicity around more
punitive laws, along with experiences of sex workers themselves, have elevated sex
worker fear of authorities and any potential documentation of their identity as sex
workers.
...Sex workers report that military policing of sex workers and known sex work ‘hotspots’
began after February 2010. Data from sex workers indicate that, over the past year,
some sectors of the military either misunderstand or knowingly misrepresent their
powers in relation to the policing and enforcing of new laws relating to sex work…
Beliefs about the newly punitive nature of the law have not only discouraged sex
workers from carrying enough condoms to share, but have resulted in the closure of
HIV prevention and condom distribution programs by some NGO groups…
…[U]nder close scrutiny, many of the ‘Prostitution offences’ detailed in the Crimes
Decree may not constitute massive changes to the law in Fiji as it concerns sex work.
However, the new criminalisation of clients, the reception and interpretation of the
provisions of the Decree by NGO service providers and by sex worker organisations,
and the response by some law enforcers in the military who have taken the laws as
license to detain, torture, abuse and force the labour of people who they know to
be sex workers, have most certainly had a dramatic impact, and a totally deleterious
effect on HIV prevention. 632
The above study built on findings from an earlier study by the same authors undertaken
prior to commencement of the Crimes Decree 2009. 633 Findings of the earlier study included:
Some participants,…most commonly those who worked from the streets, reported
police harassment, but mostly this was limited to being chased from the streets. Sex
workers said that there was now less police brutality than had been the case up to five
years ago. However, in Nadi there were numerous reports of extortion: sex workers
having to pay money to police, usually alluded to as ‘grog money’. In and around Suva
the descriptions of police response are more mixed. Mostly participants describe
the policing of the streets: ‘chasing’ sex workers away, telling them to go home, or
threatening them with arrest. Some transgender reported being forced to provide
oral sex. Interestingly, there were no claims of corruption or brutality in Lautoka and
Labasa, where sex worker organisations have been securely established and engage
632 Ibid., pp.24-26.
633 McMillan K., Worth H. (2010) Risky Business: Sex work and HIV prevention in Fiji, Sydney: University of New
South Wales.
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