In an Amicus Curiae brief issued today, Human Rights Watch and 22 organizations stated that USAID’s mandatory anti-prostitution pledge “runs counter to U.S. and internationally recognized public health practice, and human rights standards protecting the right to health.” The groups expressed concern that the anti-prostitution pledge precludes recipients of U.S. funds from using the best practices at their disposal to prevent HIV/AIDS among populations at high risk of HIV/AIDS, and serves to stigmatize those populations.
“Requiring NGOs that deal primarily with health and social services to take a political stance opposing sex work will negate their ability to approach sex workers with the non-judgmental and non-moralistic attitude that their years of experience have shown to be effective with these communities,” the brief states.
Far from addressing the harms associated with sex work, the anti-prostitution pledge “alienates the sex workers communities whose participation and cooperation in the fight against HIV/AIDS is crucial to the success of such efforts.”
Women and men in prostitution, some of whom have been trafficked, are among society’s most marginalized persons. The organizations with the most effective anti-AIDS and anti-trafficking strategies build their efforts on a sophisticated understanding of the social and personal dynamics underlying these issues, and start by building trust and credibility among the populations in question. They recognize that it is both possible and often necessary to provide social, legal and health services to men and women in prostitution without judging them, and without adopting positions opposing prostitution.
Furthermore, organizations should be able to work to provide persons in prostitution with new skills essential to moving out of the commercial sex sector, to secure the legal rights of men and women in prostitution to be free from violence and discrimination, or to empower them to demand universal condom use, thereby preventing the further spread of HIV infection within and outside this sector without the fear of losing federal funding.
Requiring organizations to adopt anti-prostitution policies makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to establish the trust necessary to provide services to already hard-to-reach groups.
