Tag: HIV/AIDS

AIDS2024: Munich

Sex workers everywhere organize to address the impact of HIV/AIDS.  Representatives and advocates for sex workers choose to attend the International AIDS Conference so that pertinent and accurate information can be provided to the sex worker community that will help in accessing resources that are needed.  As sex workers, we also attend this conference because it is one of the very few opportunities we have to network with our colleagues from all over the world and also to form new connections to learn and to inspire.  We have supported sex workers’ attendance at the International AIDS Conference for more than 20 years and are here to help our community as much as we can.

The International AIDS Conference is a very large event and can be daunting.  Sex workers have organized protests and actions about specific issues at the conference over the years and have demanded change from the conference itself.  If issues arise that you would like to address at the AIDS2024 you can email (hivaidsbppp@gmail.com) at any time and we will do our best to connect you with the information you need.

This year the International AIDS Conference will be held in Munich, Germany from July 22nd to July 26th, 2024.  The conference can be attended in person or virtually.  The AIDS2024 conference will include people living with, affected by and working with people living with HIV.  The conference will provide lessons learned for the past 40 years.  

Apply to present your work or organize a workshop at the Global VillageApplications are due January 23, 2024. The exact time applications are due on that day is unknown, so get your application in as early as possible. If you are a representative of the movement for the rights of sex workers and people in the sex work trade and need help applying please email BPPP January 13, 2023 at hivaidsbppp@gmail.com and we will try to assist you in the best way possible and/or refer you to one of our partner groups from our coalition.

Apply to present your work via an abstract submission – This process opens November 15, 2023 and closes January 23, 2024. For additional information about abstract submission contact the AIDS2024 abstract team at abstract@aids2024.org. Our community is often shut out of the main conference as abstract presenters.

Scholarships – Scholarship applications open November 15, 2023 and closes January 23, 2024.  We recommend getting your application in the day before to avoid any confusion with the AIDS2024 system closing early across time zones (many people have missed out in the past because the system closed early, don’t miss your chance to go to Munich). Applications are accepted through conference accounts only.  To create an account go to https://profile.aids2024.org/. Check out our webinar recording from 2018 with tips about how to apply and be successful. When will you hear about the outcome of your application? Scholarship recipients will be announced in early April 2024.

Want to learn more about International AIDS Conferences from the past and/or more about the ways in which sex workers are kept out or limited at this event, please check out our links from previous years.

Navigating AID2022 (first steps) by Beyonce K

Navigating AIDS2020 (first steps)

HIV2020: why? how?

Sex Workers Unite for AIDS2018

Open letter to the Media – Educate Yourselves!

Open letter to the Media – Educate Yourselves!

The Desiree Alliance, The Black Sex Worker Collective, Outlaw Project, New Jersey Red Umbrella Alliance, and the Best Practices Policy Project is partnering with the Center for HIV Law and Policy-CHLP to bring attention to the media’s portrayal of sex work and HIV. Recent articles by mainstream media have once again depicted sex workers as disease vectors and the bearers of transmission. Their ignorance is insulting and not factual. Information put out by the media is outdated and dangerous, not only to all sex workers, but especially to sex workers living with HIV and to anyone who lives with HIV. The language put forth is nothing new. It’s been a tired trope anytime that sex work and HIV are in the same room. In this day of technology, it would seem those representing the media would do an elementary Google search on what science has done for the HIV epidemic; it’s that simple. Instead, we read articles with language that still interprets HIV as a death sentence. The percentages of “Knowingly giving” or , “Knowingly spreading” or “Knowingly concealing” or “Knowingly infected”, etc., is virtually non-existent in any population. The repercussions of this language in print does nothing but create stigma, bad laws, and perpetuates violence against sex worker communities. 

As a coalition of sex worker rights organizations, we have fought back against harmful language and laws used against us. We work hand-in-hand with organizations such as CHLP to eradicate laws that create criminalization and prevent PLWHA from leading healthy and productive lives. Journalists are bound to report on facts not opinions. Leave that for the Op-eds. Educate yourselves! 

Navigating AID2022 (first steps)

By B.Karungi

Breaking down barriers to attend International AIDS Conferences is a central element of BPPP’s work. Attending the conferences allows sex worker, drug user, indigenous and trans rights representatives, who have been marginalized repeatedly in the HIV/AIDS discourse, to forge global connections, protest, educate and be heard. The next International AIDS Conference will be held in Montreal July 29 to August 1, 2022 and will include both in person and online forums. The risks posed by COVID-19 continue but some degree of participation may be good for communities that have been isolated for so long. We will post updates.

APPLY TO SPEAK OR PERFORM BY 27 Jan 2022 at 5:59pm ET / 2:59pm PT / 23:59CET: People from our communities can apply to present in all aspects of AIDS2022. The deadline for Abstracts to present in the main conference, Workshops in the main conference and Global Village presentations (this includes panels, performances, booths and film showings) is 27 January 2022 at 5:59pm ET / 2:59pm PT / 23:59 CET.

APPLY FOR SCIENTIFIC ABSTRACT MENTORING BY 14 Jan 2022: Historically very few community representatives have been permitted to present in the main conference where all the academics and scientists tend to present. While it is not aimed at the community, the conference now offers abstract mentoring (deadline to apply for mentoring is January 14, 2022). The mentoring includes an online course which we tested out on some BPPPers who reported that it was helpful but hard to access via the online system. In order to access the online course, set up a profile, click the Abstract mentoring tab and then apply to submit an abstract to review even if you don’t have one ready. You will find an option to access the online training in this process.

Apply for a scholarship by January 31, 2022 (11:59pm CET / 5:59pm EST / 2:59pm PST). In order to apply you will need a letter of recommendation from someone you work with or from a community group. Please reach out to us at hivaidsbppp@gmail.com if you need any help applying for AIDS2022 and check out our webinar recording from 2018 about how to apply.

An Open Letter to AIDS United et al:

Sex worker “focused” is not sex worker-led (20 Dec 2021)

We are writing this open letter in defense of all sex workers and in the spirit of finding solutions to long-standing dynamics in the HIV/AIDS sector globally that have led to the marginalization of the leadership of sex workers who are most affected and impacted. Please sign on here to future actions.

On December 16, 2021, without any discussion, communication or connecting of campaigns, AIDS United, Sex Workers Project (SWP), Reframing Health and Justice and the Postive Women’s Network (PWN), based their letter campaign and “movement-building” on policy work done by a coalition of sex worker-led organizations. See also, this statement by AIDS United on December 17

We are aware that our organizing and policy work in HIV and AIDS forums is carefully done, based on more than 30 years of experience and is held in high regard. It makes sense that other groups would want to build upon our groundbreaking work. 

We want to be clear about what has occurred so close to the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. This is not about building on the work of others to strengthen sex workers’ voices (which, of course, we do support), this is blatant theft. The organizing and social capital of our work on HIV/AIDS policy and justice are being taken by privileged groups with unlimited access to resources who were in no way involved and with no consultation. And, this has been done by groups that gatekeep funding, have millions of dollars, and use respectability politics surrounding sex work.

We want to be very clear that while we are highlighting a specific instance we are not surprised that our work and organizing has been appropriated. The astro-turfing of work done by sex workers is something that happens frequently. This letter is not only about documenting what happened to us. We hope it serves as an example to other communities of sex workers that have had this happen to them already and for future sex worker rights organizers. This coalition presents a question for all to consider: Who will be at the table for furthering sex worker HIV policies? This question presents a bigger issue on who gets chosen to sit at the table that we built? For these mentioned groups to have a hand in policy-making and not include this coalition disregards our roles as leaders. This should give all in the sector pause.

Adding our organizational links to the letter is not recognition. It portrays sex workers as coming into this policy work when we are clearly leaders in this fight. Our organizations specifically mentioned in our NHAS open letter (one of the links used), that our rights and principles would no longer allow “advocates” to speak for us, but yet, this appropriation of our work clearly shows that our demands were not honored. Every one of the mentioned organizations has leadership that knows there is no greater offense than grifting work off marginalized populations. 

In the spirit of solutions we list the following remedies. AIDS United, SWP, PWN and Reframe Health and Justice must take down the letter/form, publicly apologize and support the work of grassroots organizations that did this work unfunded when the issues were not yet accepted. We are here waiting for your call so you can make this right and we look forward to working with you. Additionally, each organization involved in this must change their internal policies so something like this can never happen again. Each organization should pay the sex workers most impacted by these issues to advise them on how to make these changes. Our leaders and organizers have put their lives on the line for this work without payment for decades. If funding has been obtained by the intellectual and written appropriation of our work, then our groups’ deserve compensation. Monetary compensation is very important to our organizations as it literally allows our survival to sustain the work we do towards human rights for all. We refuse to allow more privileged groups and non-sex workers take from us now because they suspect that sex worker rights has become a popular issue and catching funders and donors attention. 

For people and organizations who are not closely associated with this work, you may wonder why we didn’t try to handle this internally. The answer is we have tried without success and now after this incident, we will not hold secrets when the community of sex workers and trans-led organizations continue to suffer from erasure, astroturfing, and appropriation. We tried to get AIDS United to return our messages for years–almost a decade–after we observed numerous policy missteps and erasures. We made countless efforts to connect with AIDS United as sex worker leaders and Black trans leaders. We even had AIDS United staffers speak to policy directors on our behalf to no avail. Other organizations involved in this action, such as Reframe Health and Justice, have repeatedly been advised privately to stop taking the work of grassroots organizations as their own. And, we have all of these years of reaching out documented in our archives; We have the receipts. 

Our work is our work and we must be acknowledged as such. UN UPR Recommendation 86 is also the work of sex worker-led groups. The legwork of organizing sex workers representing in Geneva for the 2010, 2015, and 2020 Universal Periodic Review was done by sex workers.  

Our roots in this work go very deep and it is an affront to every organization listed here that the seminal work of Black trans leader Sharmus Outlaw is also being taken without acknowledgement. It is foundational in whorephobia and transphobia to erase us from our own history. In 2011, many years into her advocacy, Sharmus addressed the Global Dialogue on HIV/AIDS and shared our joint policy agenda. She was also a central part in globally organizing, presenting, and participating in the many IAS conferences. This work cannot be erased.

Sincerely,

BPPP

Desiree Alliance

The BSWC

NJRUA 

The Outlaw Project