Skip to main content

Home/ Choice for youth and sexuality/ Group items tagged prostitution

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Marina Lacroix

The WIP Contributors: Saving Sex Workers in Malawi - 0 views

  • Prostitution is deemed unacceptable in Malawi but the sex trade continues to thrive. Large numbers of women, especially young ones, are seen loitering around street corners, near hotels, bars and other entertainment places.
  • She has not been brave enough to go for an HIV test yet. The 2006 Malawi Behavior Surveillance Survey indicates that up to 70 percent of sex workers are HIV positive – this is the highest rate being faced by one group of people in the country – the national prevalence rate for Malawi is 14 percent. AIDS is Malawi’s second leading cause of death after malaria
  • Wochi says she was forced into prostitution by abject poverty. “I found sex work lucrative and I thought it was a very easy way of making money.”
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • She is paid US$3 for providing sex without using a condom and US$1 for sex with a condom.
  • According to 2008 research findings by the Community Health Department at the University of Malawi, up to 83 percent of prostitutes in Malawi are known to depend solely on sex work for their livelihoods and 95 percent of them have children. Sixty nine percent of the women who are involved in the sex trade are divorced.
  • unprotected sex, which is often practiced by sex workers, is among the key drivers of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Malawi
  • lack of negotiation skills and assertiveness in ensuring safer sex through condom use also aggravates the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted illnesses.
  • UNFPA has since funded the Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM) to work on reducing the transmission of HIV among the prostitutes by empowering them to practice safer sex, and by increasing the sex workers’ access to reproductive health, voluntary counseling and testing.
  • So far, the law in Malawi is silent on prostitution.
  • FPAM is engaging the sex workers by providing them with information, skills for negotiating safer sex (condom use) and alternative livelihood options, says Bessie Nkhwazi, the NGO’s district manager for Lilongwe.
  • FPAM, the government, NGOs and other service providers in Malawi realize that they cannot stop prostitution overnight, so their focus is largely on HIV prevention. And though FPAM and UNFPA create their workplans with the government, it’s mainly for appearances so they can say the government is somehow involved. Some of the money that FPAM receives comes from the National AIDS Commission, which is a government body, but the government is mainly helping to combat child prostitution through the deployment of child protection officers. The implementation of actual programs, especially those for older prostitutes, are really falling on the NGOs.
Marina Lacroix

Sexual Rights position paper - European Women's Lobby - 0 views

  •  
    European Women's Lobby position paper on sexual rights of women in Europe. Includes historical background and information and statistics on the current situation in EU-countries on topics such as abortion, legislation, contraception, prostitution, STDs and sex education. The EWL concludes with recommendations to member states and the EU.
Marina Lacroix

BBC NEWS ran's 'diagnosed transsexuals' - 0 views

  • Iran carries out more sex change operations than any other nation in the world except for Thailand
  • government even provides up to half the cost for those needing financial assistance and a sex change is recognised on your birth certificate.
  • She has had to work as a prostitute to make ends meet.
Marina Lacroix

Turkish cross-dressers | Gender-benders | The Economist - 0 views

  • Transvestites test the limits of Turkey’s tolerance
  • Human-rights groups say hundreds of transvestites are detained, beaten, tortured or sexually abused every year. Many are driven into prostitution. “They are seen as the lowest of the low and face more police brutality than any other group,” says Eren Keskin, a human-rights lawyer. And when anyone has dared to file a complaint, she adds, “not a single policeman has been convicted.”
  • Turkey is said to have more transvestites per head than anywhere bar Brazil.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Same-sex relations are not banned in Turkey. But like America, it bans gays and cross-dressing men from the army. Yet to win exemption from mandatory military service, they must prove their sexual orientation. A Human Rights Watch report notes that this can involve “abusive and intrusive anal examinations”, and adds that many are forced into psychiatric treatment because they are deemed to be mentally ill.
1 - 4 of 4
Showing 20 items per page