Janelle Fawkes

Manager

janelle.fawkes@scarletalliance.org.au
Sex workers are part of the solution,
Not part of the problem

www.scarletalliance.org.au
Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.
 NAPWA
(Positive people)

SCARLET
AFAO
ALLIANCE, AIVL
(Australian
(Australian Federation
Sex Of AIDS (Drug
Workers Organisations) Users)
Association)

AIDS Councils

Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.

 mission statement

Through its objectives, policies and programs,

Scarlet Alliance works to achieve equality,
social, legal, political, cultural and economic
justice for past and present sex workers in order
for sex workers to be self-determining agents,
building their own alliances and choosing where
and how they live and work.

female, male & transgender sex workers

Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.

 ¾ Executive board
¾ Volunteering since 1989
SWOP ¾ Website
ACT
¾ Spokespersons
SWAG SSPAN ¾ E-list
¾ Community Education
Scarlet
Scarlet Debby ¾ Symposium/Forums
SWOP Alliance
Alliance Doesn’t
Do it ¾ Working Parties
NT for
free • Legal
• Inclusive
SIN SWOP
• Capacity Develop
• Best practices
Plus individual membership

Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.

The key strategies used by the sex worker
rights movement including:

» community engagement;
» community development;
» health promotion;
» peer education and
» harm reduction;

have led to a successful sex worker community

based response to HIV/AIDS and sexually
transmissible infections in Australia.

Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.

Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.
Thailand
Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.
Red Umbrella protest – Sydney Opera House June 2007
 Successful HIV prevention education projects
acknowledge:
sex work as legitimate work
sex work occurs in the context of work,
most often within a work place

Sex worker rights are critical and include -

Legal rights
Industrial rights
Human rights

Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.

Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.
World AIDS conference Bangkok 2004
Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.
Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.
 The solution is sex workers determining
program development,
design,
delivery,
policy, etc
and are the decision
makers.

Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.

 Empower,
Thailand,
sex worker
university

Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.

 Threats to prevention success

• USAID policy – prostitution pledge

• A, B, C
• 100 CUP - 100% condom use policy
• Criminalisation of sex work – police
• Exit/retraining focus

IAS conference
Research - biomedical prevention
microbicide trials

Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.

 DMSC
DMSC grew out of SHIP (Sonagachi HIV
Intervention Program), the sex workers of the
area wanted their own group.
DMSC is run entirely by sex workers and their
children,
DMSC =
– cultural troupe
– 33 health clinics,
– a cooperative banking system (Usha Multipurpose
Co-operative Society Ltd.),
Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.
What is the sex workers' movement all about?

We came together as a collective community through

our active involvement as health workers, the Peer
Educators, in a HIV/STD Control Project which has
been running in Sonagachi since 1992. The Project
provided the initial space for building mutual support,
facilitating reflection and initiating collective action
among us, sex workers.
Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.
Very early in the life of the Sonagachi
Project, we, with the empathetic support of
those who had started the Project,
clearly recognised that
even to realise the very
basic Project objectives of
controlling transmission of
HIV and STDs it was
crucial to view us in our
totality -

Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.

-- as complete persons with a range of emotional
and material needs, living within a concrete and
specific social, political and ideological context
which determines the quality of our lives and
our health, and not see us merely in terms of
our sexual behaviour.
Sonagachi – India

Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.

 Contact us – info@scarletalliance.org.au

Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.

Scarlet Alliance - www.scarletalliance.org.au
International Union of Sex Workers http://www.iusw.org websites
Network of Sex Worker Projects http://www.nswp.org
Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers http://apnsw.org
International Committee For the Rights of Sex Workers In Europe
http://www.sexworkeurope.org/
ZITENG Hong Kong http://www.ziteng.org.hk
EMPOWER Thailand http://empowerfoundation.org/
Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters, Taiwan http://coswas.org/
NZPC New Zealand http://www.nzpc.org.nz
BAYSWAN San Francisco http://www.bayswan.org/
Sex Workers Project New York http://www.sexworkersproject.org
Desiree Alliance USA http://www.desireealliance.org/
SWOP USA http://www.swop-usa.org/
Stella, Montreal http://www.chezstella.org/
SALLI, Finland http://www.salli.org/english/index.html
MAGGIES, Toronto http://www.maggiestoronto.ca
Debby doesn't do it for free - http://www.debbydoesntdoitforfree.org
Sex Workers Working with People living with a disability
Touching Base - http://www.touchingbase.org
Scarlet Alliance - Australian Sex Workers Association Inc.