SEX WORK AND THE LAW - HIV/AIDS Data Hub

social security laws that do not recognize sex work as legitimate work contribute to stigma
and marginalization of sex workers.
Denial of identity documents and citizenship rights
Laws, policies and practices restrict the access of sex workers to identity documents. Lack
of identity documents can restrict property and inheritance rights, freedom of movement
and access to education, health care, housing and banking. In some countries (e.g.,
Bangladesh and India), sex workers have reported difficulties obtaining voter identity
cards that are required for access to a range of government services, and that many female
sex workers cannot register the birth of their children due to inability to confirm the
identity of their child’s father. In China and Lao PDR, sex workers who are internal migrants
report harassment from local officials or difficulties in accessing services because they are
living away from the town where they are officially registered as residents. Sex workers
in Malaysia and Myanmar also report restricted access to services arising from difficulties
obtaining identity cards. APNSW submitted as follows:
APNSW members continually raise issues around lack of citizenship rights such as the
right to vote, open bank accounts, register births, buy SIM cards, receive humanitarian
aid, become employed, visit public hospitals, or migrate. This is manifested in
practice by lack of documentation such as [identity] cards and certificates. It creates
and sustains vulnerability, forms potent barriers to economic opportunity and is a
barrier to access health services of all kinds for a large number of male, female, and
transgender sex workers in the region. 39
Compulsory detention centres
Compulsory detention of sex workers for the purpose of ‘rehabilitation’ or ‘re-education’
is a highly punitive approach that continues to be implemented in some countries (e.g.,
China, India, Myanmar and Sri Lanka). These centres are stigmatizing and detainees are
vulnerable to human rights abuses, including compulsory medical examinations and
forced labour. In some countries, centres are used as a source of free or cheap labour,
ostensibly to provide skills in alternative livelihoods. Detention is compulsory because sex
workers are viewed to have committed ‘immoral acts’ or a ‘social evil’, and deprivation of
liberty or compulsory labour are considered to assist with ‘rehabilitation’. There is generally
little or no access to psychological support or HIV prevention, treatment, care and support
services in these detention centres. Community-based empowerment, health promotion
and harm reduction programmes for sex workers offer more cost effective and humane
alternatives than compulsory detention.
Anti-trafficking laws, policies and practices
Legislation, treaties and regional agreements that conflate human trafficking and sex work
and define sex work as ‘sexual exploitation’ contribute to vulnerability, generate stigma
and create barriers to HIV service delivery. Trafficking laws have been used to suppress
voluntary sex work (e.g., Cambodia, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand). This
has resulted in abuses of sex workers’ human rights and undermining of HIV programmes.
Across the region, efforts of police and NGOs intended to ‘rescue and rehabilitate’ sex
workers have had harmful consequences, including separating sex workers who are
voluntarily participating in sex work from their livelihood and families. Police raids and
‘rescue’ operations in brothel areas can adversely affect outreach work to provide health
39 APNSW, Submission to UNDP and UNFPA, November 2011.
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