Sex work and public good: Conflicting policies, competing moralities Nandinee Bandyopadhyay 05 August 2008 XVII International AIDS Conference Mexico City TUSY03

Sex workers as policy subjects  Sex work – always been subjected to moralising impulses of the social elite  The recent policy attention to sex work not free from this history

Arenas of recent policy attention in India HIV The Third National AIDS Control Programme – NACPIII Trafficking Official Amendments to the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2006 (ITPA)

Sex work and HIV in India: what is the evidence?  HIV epidemic concentrated among certain key populations and their sexual partners – sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgenders and people who inject drugs  They are key to the epidemic dynamics as they are most likely to get infected by HIV, as well as to transmit the virus  Their substantive involvement makes the response to the epidemic effective as well as sustainable

NACPIII: A policy that reflects the evidence  Targeted Interventions for key populations – the major thrust of the programme  Community mobilisation and creating enabling environment to secure rights and entitlements of sex workers and other key populations – a core approach  Plans to transfer ownership of at least 50% targeted interventions to sex workers and other key populations by the end of the programme

Sex work and trafficking in India: what is the evidence?  No quantitative national research to estimate the volume of trafficking into sex work  Qualitative studies show –men, women and children are trafficked into many labour sectors other than sex work, including marriage –majority of sex workers are in the profession by consent and a very small minority of sex workers are trafficked –sex workers are best placed to prevent trafficking into sex work

Official amendments to ITPA: a discordant policy  The bill conflates trafficking with sex work and restricts penalties to trafficking of persons for prostitution only, leaving other sectors unlegislated  The bill penalizes women for prostitution in public and soliciting (Sections 7 and 8)  The bill proposes criminalisation of clients visiting brothels (Section 5)

And just to confound matters more here is another example of same policy environment yielding contradictory responses – and this time not in India

2007: UNAIDS Guidance Note on HIV and Sex Work  Pillar 1: Reducing vulnerabilities and addressing structural issues  Pillar 2: Reducing risk to HIV infection  Pillar 3: Building supportive environments and expanding choices

2008: Commission on AIDS in Asia  Governments should remove legislative, policy, and other barriers to strengthen access to services of groups most at risk of HIV  Similarly, donors must remove conditionality or policies that prevent their partners from supporting organizations that work with sex worker organizations  Governments should repeal or amend laws or regulations that enshrine HIV-related discrimination

The same political environment, the same policy actors, then why such divergent policy response to evidence? “On the day Rangarajan submitted the report, I had called for legalizing sex trade” Oscar Fernandes, Union minister for Labour, Government of India Renuka Chowdhury, Union Minister of Women and Child Development, Government of India “It is men’s turn to suffer”

So, why is research-based public policy not the golden standard?  Evidence does not drive policy  Public policy is not always about public good – it is about catering to competing constituencies  Evidence can also be too little, too late, and wrongly focused  Evidence making is a contested terrain too

What is to be done?  ‘Rights’ rather than what is right, or scientific, or effective or cost-efficient....  Go back to the streets – activism and not just advocacy  Right use of evidence in activism

¡Gracias! Thank you!