Prostitution+Pledge

Contention One: Inherency.

Recipients of US AIDS Funding must have policies that explicitly oppose prostitution and sex trafficking or risk losing support. NGOs have discontinued successful multi-sectoral progressive approaches to disease prevention and education. Edi C.M. Kinney, Ph.D Candidate at UC-Berkeley, 2006. “RECENT DEVELOPMENT Appropriations for the Abolitionists: Undermining Effects of the U.S. Mandatory Anti-Prostitution Pledge in the Fight Against Human Trafficking and HIV/AIDS,” 21 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 158

[In turn, USAID issued a new directive, AAPD 05-4, on June 9, 2005, stipulating that all recipients of Global AIDS funding, whether foreign-or U.S.-based organizations, must have a "policy explicitly opposing ... prostitution and sex trafficking." n96 The stated purpose of the revised directive is to create new standard provisions which not only require all grantees to agree not to "promote or advocate the legalization or practice of prostitution or sex trafficking;" the new provisions also operate to "permit recipients to not endorse or utilize a multi-sectoral approach to combating [sic] HIV/AIDS or to not endorse, utilize or participate in a prevention method or treatment program to which the organization has a religious or moral objection." n97 The June 2005 USAID directive requires certification that all grants (and sub-grants) are conditioned on enforceable agreements adopting "Standard Provisions," including the "Prohibition on the Promotion or Advocacy of the Legalization or Practice of Prostitution or Sex Trafficking (Assistance)." n98 This funding limitation requires recipients to endorse language acknowledging that the "prostitution and related activities ... are inherently harmful and [*176] dehumanizing, and contribute to the phenomenon of trafficking in persons," n99 which in turn is linked to the spread of AIDS. n100 As a result of the broad wording of the policy, the policy excludes groups unwilling to endorse the pledge for fear that condemning prostitution will curtail effective interventions or undermine outreach programs by endorsing discrimination against sex workers and alienating the high-risk communities that anti-trafficking and AIDS-prevention programs purport to protect and assist. n101]

NGOs are forced to cut successful programs and end working partnerships, halting progress in AIDS prevention Kinney, Ph.D Candidate at UC-Berkeley, 2006. “RECENT DEVELOPMENT Appropriations for the Abolitionists: Undermining Effects of the U.S. Mandatory Anti-Prostitution Pledge in the Fight Against Human Trafficking and HIV/AIDS,” 21 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 158)

[ The restricted range and ambiguous scope of interventions sanctioned by U.S. funding agencies means that organizations relying on these monies are pressured to curtail new programs or self-censor strategies proven effective in combating trafficking, forced prostitution and/or the HIV/AIDS pandemic. n137 [*184] Several Thai activists and UN officials complained that the anti-prostitution policy restricts programs from utilizing best practices to prevent HIV-transmission and reduce the risk of exploitation in the commercial sex sector. n138 Instead, U.S. funding policies exert a chilling effect on trafficking initiatives in Thailand and the Greater Mekong Sub-region: some NGOs in Thailand have already curbed their programming in response to decisions rescinding the funding of other groups to stay in the good graces of governmental authorities, thereby securing a stake in state-backed anti-trafficking initiatives that receive U.S. funding. n139 Stories of AIDS-prevention and rights-based sex worker outreach programs cut off from USAID funding circulate widely through e-mail listservs within the international NGO community, disciplining organizations who resist abolitionist approaches, as well as groups whose work is unrelated to prostitution but who seek to maintain an important source of funding. n140 For example, several NGO activists I interviewed in northern Thailand were critical of the divisive effects of the anti-prostitution pledge on the multi-sectoral coalitions forged to combat child abuse, drug addiction, drug trafficking, and commercial sex exploitation. n141 One child rights advocate whose organization had signed a USAID agreement to continue operating its shelter complained that the requisite anti-prostitution pledge had produced a rift in the NGO community, disrupting multi-sectoral strategies to combating AIDS and human trafficking and emerging alliances between USAID-funded NGOs and sex worker organizations, sympathetic AIDS-prevention groups, and key migrants' rights organizations working with ethnic minorities to the detriment of all groups. n142 U.S. funding policies mandating endorsement of anti-prostitution ideologies disqualify a substantial number of local organizations that already [*185] maintain partnerships with high-risk populations and migrant communities. n143 At one NGO forum, a wide array of activists assessed the negative impact of USAID funding on health and development NGO networks in northern Thailand: one sex worker advocate reported that "Bush's [anti-prostitution] policy is creating division among NGOs. We used to work with a lot of other organizations but now many of them are obliged to sign this pledge that they will not work with sex workers." n144]

Health care is now unavailable to most sex workers as a result Avert.org, International AIDS Charity, 7-13-07, http://www.avert.org/prostitution-aids.htm

“Sex workers have told us that when they ask a client to use a condom, he offers double the price to have sex without the condom. These women are trying to provide for their children and families, so they take the offer.” In addition, the stigma that sex workers face can make it hard for them to access health, legal, and social services. They may either be afraid to seek out these services for fear of discrimination, or physically blocked from accessing them – for instance, if a nurse refuses to treat them after finding out about their profession. Without access to these services, sex workers may face a higher risk of HIV infection, and be more likely to pass on HIV if they do become infected.

Thus the plan: The United States Federal Government should provide health assistance to sex workers living in Sub Saharan Africa.

Contention Two: Advantages.

ADV 1: HUMAN RIGHTS

Policies on sex workers reinforce gender stereotypes and human rights abuses (Edi C.M. Kinney, Ph.D Candidate at UC-Berkeley, 2006. “RECENT DEVELOPMENT Appropriations for the Abolitionists: Undermining Effects of the U.S. Mandatory Anti-Prostitution Pledge in the Fight Against Human Trafficking and HIV/AIDS,” 21 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 158)

[Migrants' rights organizations and sex worker advocates were highly critical of laws and policies focused on rescuing women from the sex industry, arguing that the common wisdom that "men are smuggled; women are trafficked" into sexual exploitation is based on and reproduces a problematic [*187] model of gender difference in trafficking discourse. n158 While male migrants are often cast as economic agents colluding with smugglers and posing threats to national security, female migrants are perceived as passive victims in need of rescue and "rehabilitation." n159 Not only do trafficking raids on sex establishments place voluntary undocumented workers and ethnic minorities in jeopardy of arrest, fine, and deportation, such interventions disregard the diverse forms of trafficking and exploitation of men and women in workplaces other than the sex sector. n160 Frustrated by this myopic understanding of trafficking, activists frequently pointed out that women and children in many different work settings, particularly factory and domestic work, experience sexual harassment and rape. n161 These widespread forms of sexualized exploitation reflect the limited impact of prostitution abolitionist anti-trafficking policies which channel funding to raid-and-rescue interventions focusing on brothel prostitution instead of attending to the abuse - sexual or otherwise - of migrant women, men and children working in the informal sector. n162 As one sex worker advocate reported, the conditions are often "[safer] and better in brothels than work in a house" as a domestic worker, because women working in commercial sex establishments generally had more freedom of movement, more control over their own labor, higher earnings, and were more confident of their safety from abuse (sexual or [*188] otherwise) when they are not isolated from others. n163 Private homes and cottage-industry manufacturers are unlikely to be visited by outsiders or inspected by labor officials, thereby promoting ideal conditions for labor exploitation. Conversely, police, inspectors, and customers can more readily locate and assess the existence or severity of exploitation in commercial sex establishments. n164]]

Treating sex workers like criminals overshadows the real problem and hurts outreach efforts

(Edi C.M. Kinney, Ph.D Candidate at UC-Berkeley, 2006. “RECENT DEVELOPMENT Appropriations for the Abolitionists: Undermining Effects of the U.S. Mandatory Anti-Prostitution Pledge in the Fight Against Human Trafficking and HIV/AIDS,” 21 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 158)

[Furthermore, mandates requiring both U.S. and foreign organizations to explicitly oppose prostitution cast a shadow of criminality over commercial sex workers, implicitly legitimizing discrimination against them and diminishing the efficacy of anti-sex trafficking enforcement as well as AIDS prevention and outreach programs. n178 Interventions focused primarily on criminal justice prerogatives - rescuing victims to serve as witnesses against traffickers - fail to provide trafficking survivors with substantive civil remedies, compensation for their labor, protection from retaliation, or immigration relief such as work permits or asylum, each of which would more directly confront the root causes of human trafficking and ameliorate exploitation in the informal sector, including the commercial sexual industry. n179 The successes, limitations, and failures of law-enforcement/legal protection models for trafficking interventions have important implications for the global war against "modern day slavery." n180 U.S.-backed initiatives framing trafficking in terms of criminality overshadow campaigns to protect and empower migrant laborers, compromising efforts to tackle the socio-legal discrimination which amplifies their vulnerability to trafficking in the first place. n181 Indeed, critics argue that trafficking interventions styled along the criminal justice/victim intervention model endorsed by the U.S. are ultimately counterproductive because:]

Human rights are the foremost moral imperative because they are the basis of all human action and agency Alan Gewirth, Phil@UChicago, Human Rights, ‘82

The primary thesis of the following essays is that human rights are of supreme importance, and are central to all other moral considerations, because they are rights of every human being to the necessary conditions of human action, i.e., those conditions that must be fulfilled if human action is to be possible either at all or with general chances of success in achieving the purposes for which humans act. Because they are such rights, they must be respected by every human being, in the primary justification of governance is that they serve to secure these rights. Thus the Subjects as well as the respondents of human rights are all human beings; the Objects of the rights are the aforesaid necessary conditions of human action and of successful action in general; and the justifying basis of the rights is the moral principle which establishes that all humans are equally entitled to have these necessary conditions, to fulfill the general needs of human agency.

States must fulfill their human rights obligations in order to promote these rights in the future Mary Robinson, Foreign Policy, Sept/Oct ’04, Developing Human Rights, Issue 144, Academic Search Premier

It is time to insist that states fulfill their international human rights obligations. General pledges to international assistance, such as those affirmed in international human rights treaties, will need to be interpreted in specific cases over time. But it is already clear that in most areas of policy, rich and powerful states and other outside actors are currently doing too little to help those most in need. Just as important, richer states are not changing their own policies that damage the economic and social rights of people in other countries. They are failing to undo harm for which they are directly or indirectly responsible. Ibrahim J. Gassama Associate Professor of Law, University of Oregon, School of Law Spring, 2004 It has been suggested that, paradoxically, the greater the potential threat to human beings and their vital interests posed by utilitarian reasoning, the greater the perceived need [*97] for rights-based theories. n169 If so, this might lead one to be optimistic that some version or combination of the reforms outlined above might be adopted in the next stage of WTO evolution. Absent such changes, market globalization, in its institutional and regulatory form as the international economic law of today, could mean the triumph of utilitarian approaches to values over deontological ones, and therefore the triumph of trade over human rights. The trade system as it is now constituted is normatively incapable of properly evaluating linkage decisions because its very approach signals a defeat of fundamental non-trade values. At a minimum, this means that to the extent that trade institutions are called upon to resolve issues involving trade values and other values such as those underlying human rights law, the utilitarian approach underlying trade values will lead to decisions which are fundamentally skewed in favor of trade over other values at stake. This is not a victory for trade, but a defeat for our efforts to establish a just global order.

ADV 2: AIDS

AIDS Prevention is most successful when sex workers participate in programs—the US policy actively interferes with prevention plans (Edi C.M. Kinney, Ph.D Candidate at UC Berkeley, 2006. “RECENT DEVELOPMENT Appropriations for the Abolitionists: Undermining Effects of the U.S. Mandatory Anti-Prostitution Pledge in the Fight Against Human Trafficking and HIV/AIDS,” 21 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 158)

Many organizations working at the grassroots level in South and South East Asia have reported negative effects of the United States' anti-prostitution policies. For example, Cambodian NGOs working with people in the commercial sex industry have discontinued non-traditional programs teaching English developed to help educate and empower sex workers to assert their rights, demand condom use with clients, or simply to learn skills that provide an exit from sex work to alternative employment, such as the growing tourism industry. n106 Grassroots sex worker organizations and migrants' rights advocates in Thailand argue that policies condemning prostitution and promoting "rescue" further marginalize and alienate sex workers, rather than address the dangers and abuses sex workers themselves identify as increasing the risks of exploitation, such as continued police harassment, corruption, and discrimination. n107 Several [*178] migrants' rights and sex worker activists argue that the decriminalization of prostitution would assuage these problems, thereby contributing to the success of public health campaigns against HIV by engaging sex workers to promote condom use, as well as increasing access for labor and health officials to monitor working conditions in commercial sex establishments. Indeed, activists and officials observed that abolitionist policies have actually backfired in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Thailand. A UN project director active in anti-trafficking and AIDS-prevention programming noted that Thailand's 100% condom use campaign was highly successful, in part because brothels were not considered illegal and public health workers could easily access sex workers. In fact, "the brothel owners welcomed in the public health folks, because, well, it makes good business sense to keep your workers healthy!" n108 However, after new laws began cracking down on commercial sex establishments, brothels transformed themselves into legitimate businesses by creating "karaoke bars" or small restaurants as a front. n109 Now, allowing public health workers to provide condoms and HIV testing for the brothel workers inside risks violating the new law. n110 Thus, policies that may seem to promote positive social change fall prey to "the hell of good intentions," as unintended consequences undermine the goals of the policy and the means of achieving it. n111] ] Nevertheless, programs which advocate for the decriminalization of prostitution to stymie the spread of HIV/AIDS through education and empowerment of sex workers to demand condom use are explicitly disallowed under U.S. laws and policies. For example, one grassroots sex workers' empowerment organization was pushed to terminate its funding agreement with USAID, despite its protest that advocating for the health and rights of commercial sex workers did not amount to the "promotion of prostitution." n112 [*179] The director of the organization issued a statement declaring that it "would not be true to our mission of local empowerment, including of all women and girls, if we succumbed to the dictates of people in Washington who do not apparently understand that victories against HIV/AIDS have been won when those most at risk are respected and empowered." n113

1AC

HIV/AIDS spread in Sub-Saharan Africa predominantly through sex workers Avert.org, International AIDS Charity, 7-13-07, http://www.avert.org/prostitution-aids.htm While it is important that sex workers are protected from discrimination, and that their role in the global AIDS epidemic is not overstated, it is equally important that high rates of infection amongst sex workers are not overlooked. There is evidence that commercial sex is a significant factor in many countries’ AIDS epidemics. More so than in many other regions, women in Sub-Saharan Africa often turn to sex work because they are desperately poor and have no other way of earning an income. In some cases, women or girls are not involved in sex work as a long-term occupation, but may exchange sexual services for money as a temporary measure ¬– for instance, to pay school tuition fees, or to provide food for their family at a time of crisis. 11 The spread of HIV through commercial sex is a major issue in parts of West Africa. In Senegal, for instance, the AIDS epidemic appears to be driven by commercial sex, with around 27.1% of sex workers in the country’s capital, Dakar, found to be infected with HIV in 2005. Similarly, commercial sex seems to be a significant factor in Ghana’s AIDS epidemic. Studies of sex workers in 2005 also found high HIV prevalence rates in the West African nations of Togo (53.9%) and Burkina Faso (20.8%). 12 In other parts of Africa, past studies of urban areas have found levels of HIV infection as high as 73% among sex workers in Ethiopia, and 68% among those in Zambia. 13

Lack of condoms directly results in HIV/AIDS spreading Avert.org, International AIDS Charity, 7-13-07, http://www.avert.org/prostitution-aids.htm

In general, sex workers have relatively high numbers of sexual partners. This in itself does not necessarily increase their likelihood of becoming infected with HIV – if they use condoms consistently and correctly then they will probably be protected no matter how many people they have sex with. The reality, however, is that sex workers and their clients do not always use condoms. In some cases, this is because sex workers have no access to condoms, or are not aware of their importance. In other cases, sex workers are simply powerless to negotiate safer sex, even if they try to do so. Clients may refuse to pay for sex if they have to use a condom, and use intimidation or violence to enforce unprotected sex. They may also offer more money for unprotected sex – a proposal that can be hard to refuse if the sex worker in question is in desperate need of an income. “Sex workers have told us that when they ask a client to use a condom, he offers double the price to have sex without the condom. These women are trying to provide for their children and families, so they take the offer.”

AIDS kills 1 in 4 Africans, kills economies, halts agricultural production, exacerbates divisions, creates destabilization, cripples militaries, and undermines international security International Crisis Group, International Organization to prevent conflict, 6-19-01, [“HIV/AIDS as a Security Issue,” http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=1831&l=5]

It is projected that, at current rates, more than 100 million people worldwide will have been infected with HIV by 2005. Where the epidemic has hit hardest, Sub-Saharan Africa, experts believe AIDS will eventually kill one in four adults. Seven countries already have adult prevalence rates above 20 per cent of the population. Yet this pandemic may only be at its beginning. Infection rates are still rising in most African nations, and the strongest effects are only now beginning to be felt. Elsewhere, infection rates are rising at steep rates, in patterns disturbingly similar to those observed in Sub-Saharan Africa five to ten years ago. HIV infections are believed to be doubling every year in Russia and increasing rapidly across the Commonwealth of Independent States, India, China and Southeast Asia. For a growing number of states, AIDS can no longer be understood or responded to as primarily a public health crisis. It is becoming a threat to security. AIDS is a personal security issue. As 5, 10, 20 per cent or more of adults become fatally ill, gains in health, longevity and infant mortality are wiped out. Agricultural production and food supply become tenuous; families and communities break apart; and surviving young people cease to have a viable future. Divisions among ethnic and social groups may be exacerbated. Economic migration and refugee seekers increase. AIDS is an economic security issue. It threatens social and economic progress, worsening trends that we know contribute strongly to the potential for violent conflict and humanitarian catastrophe. A World Bank study suggests that even an adult prevalence rate of 10 per cent may reduce the growth of national income by up to a third. At infection levels above 20 per cent, studies show that a nation can expect a decline in GDP of 1 per cent per year. AIDS is a communal security issue. It directly affects police capability, and community stability more generally. It breaks down national institutions that govern society and provide public confidence that the people's interests are being served. It strikes hardest at the educated and mobile - civil servants, teachers, health care professionals, police. In South Africa, as many as one in seven civil servants were thought to be HIV-positive in 1998. AIDS is a national security issue. In Africa, many military forces have infection rates as much as five times that of the civilian population. The weaknesses it creates in militaries as well as in the pillars of economic growth and institutional endurance can make nations more vulnerable to both internal and external conflict. AIDS is an international security issue - both by its potential to contribute to international security challenges, and by its ability to undermine international capacity to resolve conflicts. A military analyst with South Africa's Institute of Strategic Studies has warned that unless the spread of AIDS among African armies is stopped soon, it is possible that many countries, including South Africa, will soon be unable to participate in peacekeeping operations.

ADV 3 - FREE SPEECH

Anti-Prostitution Pledge violates free speech by withholding aid from sex workers (Edi C.M. Kinney, Ph.D Candidate at UC Berkeley, 2006. “RECENT DEVELOPMENT Appropriations for the Abolitionists: Undermining Effects of the U.S. Mandatory Anti-Prostitution Pledge in the Fight Against Human Trafficking and HIV/AIDS,” 21 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 158)

[The complaints of DKT International and OSI allege that requiring organizations to denounce prostitution as a condition of U.S. support not only undermines successful interventions with at-risk communities: it also violates private organizations' right to free expression and invites arbitrary application of the laws. n21 Organizations fighting against the current administration's anti-prostitution/trafficking pledge requirement argue that it is unconstitutionally vague, as it fails to define the clause "explicitly opposing prostitution," allowing broad construction and arbitrary enforcement. n22 Plaintiffs argue that the funding requirement violates the Due Process clause of the Fifth Amendment, compels speech in violation of the First Amendment, and that the pledge is "unconstitutionally vague" in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act, 5 U.S.C. 551 et seq. n23 OSI argues that the anti-prostitution pledge requirement is unconstitutional because it "requires private organizations to adopt the [*163] government's point of view in order to receive funding." n24 Moreover, the pledge requirement not only applies to activities funded by U.S. government agencies, but also to organizations' use of private funds from other sources. n25 Plaintiffs and their amici contend that the funding restrictions essentially mandate civil service organizations to endorse governmental ideologies to the detriment of the very communities they intend to assist. n26 Deeming "any group" which does not adopt an anti-prostitution stance as ineligible for U.S. funding effectively limits the competition to groups willing to operate within an anti-prostitution, anti-choice framework. Conditioning funding on an organizations' willingness to adopt a position that condemns those involved in the sex industry as "inherently [harmed] and [dehumanized]" n27 victims runs counter to the best practices in public health and many respected organizations in the IO and NGO community. n28 Groups at risk of human trafficking, exploitation in the commercial sex industry, and contracting or spreading HIV frequently do not take advantage of programs providing social, health, and legal services unless services are provided in a non-judgmental, non-discriminatory context. n29 As a result, the anti-prostitution pledge requirement works to screen out key organizations with years of experience in the field, established connections to targeted communities, and links to local networks of indigenous organizations, excluding them from U.S.-backed initiatives that work to combat HIV/AIDS and human trafficking. n30]

Forcing government opinion on NGOs violates constitutional rights Center for Health and Gender Equity, Rights-Based NGOs, Policy Brief, Nov ’05, Implications of U.S. Policy Restrictions for Programs Aimed at Commercial Sex Workers and Victims of Trafficking Worldwide http://www.genderhealth.org/pubs/ProstitutionOathImplications.pdf

Finally, the expansion of these restrictions to U.S.-based groups contradicts the fundamental right to freedom of speech guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.32 Requiring domestic organizations with mixed funding to adopt positions consistent with U.S. government policy compels speech, which is an unconstitutional condition on government funding in violation of the First Amendment.33 While the U.S. government can legally require its funds be used to further government-approved messages,34 it has not previously compelled U.S. organizations with multiple funding sources to speak explicitly on an issue in compliance with a specific U.S. objective. The courts have long held that the government does not have power to compel a U.S. grantee to pledge allegiance to the government’s viewpoint in order to participate in a government program.35 Compelling foreign organizations to adopt policies consistent with the government’s viewpoint raises important constitutional concerns and undermines the democratic principles for which the United States stands.3

Suppression of free speech leads to oppression and tyranny American Civil Liberties Union. "Free Speech Must Be Protected." Opposing Viewpoints: Censorship. Ed. Andrea C. Nakaya. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Thomson Gale

It's the foundation of self-fulfillment. The right to express one's thoughts and to communicate freely with others affirms the dignity and worth of each and every member of society, and allows each individual to realize his or her full human potential. Thus, freedom of expression is an end in itself—and as such, deserves society's greatest protection. It's vital to the attainment and advancement of knowledge, and the search for the truth. The eminent 19th-century writer and civil libertarian, John Stuart Mill, contended that enlightened judgment is possible only if one considers all facts and ideas, from whatever source, and tests one's own conclusions against opposing views. Therefore, all points of view—even those that are "bad" or socially harmful—should be represented in society's "marketplace of ideas." It's necessary to our system of self-government and gives the American people a "checking function" against government excess and corruption. If the American people are to be the masters of their fate and of their elected government, they must be well-informed and have access to all information, ideas and points of view. Mass ignorance is a breeding ground for oppression and tyranny.

Contention Three: Solvency.

Plan allows NGOs to resume their successful programs (Edi C.M. Kinney, Ph.D Candidate at UC Berkeley, 2006. “RECENT DEVELOPMENT Appropriations for the Abolitionists: Undermining Effects of the U.S. Mandatory Anti-Prostitution Pledge in the Fight Against Human Trafficking and HIV/AIDS,” 21 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 158)

Critics of the extended global gag orders argue that socially conservative policies in foreign aid and programming undermine the development of a robust civil society, impede the democratic process, and operate to limit the [*164] participation of women and other marginalized groups in society. n31 Several prominent public interest groups have rallied around the issue, submitting amicus briefs in support of DKT's position. n32 These organizations assert that U.S. funding policies violate the First Amendment by forcing the speech of organizations to take an ideological stance in exchange for government funding. n33 Moreover, they allege that the negative fallout of the U.S.'s expanded "global gag" order curbing HIV/AIDS interventions is tantamount to wholesale "public health malpractice." n34 Many advocacy groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have reported that the administration's policy is negatively affecting the efforts of NGOs to combat HIV/AIDS on the ground. n35 Not only have funding restrictions and terminations disrupted crucial health and social welfare services for impoverished peoples throughout the world, such policies undermine the utilization and development of best practices in the field and arguably constitute violation of international laws. n36 Beyond the detrimental health and development consequences of the expanding U.S. global gag policies, the implementation of increasingly conservative funding restrictions has also taken a considerable toll on the class of organizations that qualify to receive funding from U.S. agencies, thereby reshaping the political composition and trajectory of many AIDS-prevention initiatives at home and abroad. n37]

Sex workers key to reduce spreading of HIV/AIDS—empirically proven Avert.org, International AIDS Charity, 7-13-07, http://www.avert.org/prostitution-aids.htm

Prevention campaigns aimed at sex workers not only reduce the number of HIV infections that result from paid sex; they can also play a vital role in restricting the overall spread of HIV in a country. Proof of this can be seen in countries such as Bangladesh, Benin, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic and Thailand, where general reductions in the national HIV prevalence have been largely attributed to HIV prevention initiatives aimed at sex workers and their clients. 1

Plan helps HIV prevention efforts Urban Justice Center, LGBT legal policy nonprofit, April ’07, “Working Group on Sex Work and Human Rights,” http://www.sexworkersproject.org/working-group/downloads/SexWorkAndHumanRightsMediaToolkit.pdf

The risk for sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS can be high in sex work, but it does not need to be. Sex workers who have the knowledge and necessary tools are able to protect themselves and their clients. When they have the power to negotiate, sex workers are leaders in practicing safer-sex methods.