Barcelona 2013
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| Abstract #560 - E-Posters English | ||||
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Session: 50.58: E-Posters English (Poster) on Sunday in Chaired by Authors: Presenting Author: Mr Théau Brigand - AIDES, France |
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| Additional Authors: Dr. Jordi Casabona, Sra Cristina Sanclemente, Dra. Anna Esteve, Dra. Victoria Gonzalez, Grupo HIVITS TS, | ||||
| Aim: Sexual work is not illegal in France. Nevertheless, the 13th of March, 2003, the French Parliament voted the prohibition of ?passive soliciting? in a wider law on homeland security. This prohibition matches a perception of sex workers as victims, and this law aims at reducing human traffic and sexual work in France by means of repression. Since there is evidence that legal policies have a huge impact on the social and health life of sex workers, we have decided to investigate consequences on sex workers lives 10 years law was adopted. | ||||
| Method / Issue: Three information sources were used to provide a comprehensive vision of law impact on sex workers in France. Médecins du Monde is a French medical NGO running outreach programs targeting female sex workers in Paris (?Lotus Bus?) and Nantes (?Funambus?). Most of them are undocumented migrants from China and Sub Saharan Africa. Both programs have investigated between 2010 and 2012 sex workers daily life, health and social status and exposition to violence. AIDES is a French HIV/Aids community-based organization working with several most-at-risk populations including sex workers. On the basis of the daily activities implemented with these populations, AIDES has provided information about the risk exposure, health difficulties and needs of sex workers. Finally, French ministry of Public Health and Social Affairs inspection authority (IGAS) has published in 2012 a study about the public action towards prostitution and its consequences on health issues. | ||||
| Results / Comments: According to Médecins du Monde, prohibition of passive soliciting contributed to increase the level of violence experienced by sex workers such as forced condomless intercourses, physical violence, rapes, sequestrations. The ?lotus bus? study reported that 86% of the women were confronted to violence, but only 1/3 consulted their medical doctor afterwards and only 1/5 filed a complaint against. These difficulties regarding access to rights are exacerbated by police harassment. 74% of the women had been arrested during the last 12 months, most of them being arrested at least 6 times. These observations are confirmed by AIDES. Exposed to violence and invisible, sex workers are less able to defend themselves. Isolated and confronted to the language barrier, lack of knowledge regarding HIV and other STIs prevention is observed. Forced by the law to stay hidden, sex workers become a hard-to-reach population for those organizations in capacity to provide them with information about prevention, health access and rights. IGAS report points out that prostitution is a complex but poorly documented issue. Thus, a mainly repressive public action, based on a homogenous vision of prostitution, fails to reduce it and increases social and sanitary vulnerability. | ||||
| Discussion: Three different approaches and sources of information share the fact that the prohibition of passive soliciting impacts access to civil rights and preventive and curative interventions. As a consequence French parliament recently voted the abrogation of this measure in March 2013 following a strong advocacy from civil society organizations. However, there are still serious difficulties to implement an accurate public action toward sex work as there is a lack of solid information. | ||||
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