Sex Work and Harm Reduction in NC
Submitted by NC Harm Reducti... on Tue, 08/23/2011 - 8:39pm
People say that sex work is the oldest profession in the world, but few know it is also one of the most dangerous. Sex work, also known as prostitution, is the provision of sexual services in exchange for money, drugs, or other favors. Other forms of sex work, such as survival sex, exchange sex to pay rent or to buy food or other living supplies.
Sex workers face many dangers on the job, including exposure to disease, violence, discrimination, stigma, and exploitation. Harm reduction principles can help safe-guard sex workers lives, teach empowerment and survival skills, and prevent the spread of diseases such as HIV and hepatitis, acquired through unprotected sex and unsterilized drug equipment, which is often present in sex work.
April, a Durham sex worker and client of the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, used to run her own cleaning business. Due to a tumultuous childhood of poverty and a difficult family life, she turned to drugs to ease the pain, and lost her business on account of the addiction. With no financial resources to support herself, she turned to sex work to make ends meet. For April and others like her, drugs and sex work form a cyclical relationship; turning tricks pays for drugs that are often used to escape painful and abusive living conditions, and drugs may ease the unpleasantness of turning tricks, creating a cycle very difficult to break.
April adopts several harm reduction strategies to protect herself when she works. For example, to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis, April washes her hands and body often and always uses a condom when with a client, including for oral and anal sex. Harm reduction programs also encourage sex workers to use the reality, or female, condom, because it can be inserted in the vagina or anus up to eight hours before an encounter. This gives a sex worker more control over her own sexual health, instead of relying on her John to use a condom. Additionally, some workers use “cheeking,” hiding a condom in one’s cheek and putting in on discreetly during a blow job, as a harm reduction strategy.
“You have to watch your back in this business because clients will mistreat you,” April says. “I’ve been raped, stabbed, and beaten, but I’ve learned ways to stay safer.”
Harm reduction programs that provide condoms, lubricants, dental dams, antibiotics and other supplies to sex workers help lower the incidence of HIV and hepatitis in the community. Compare the cost of these supplies, which may only be a few cents per item, to the larger expense of treating disease: over the course of a lifetime, HIV costs about $700,000 to manage, while hepatitis C costs between $100,000 and $430,000 to treat.
But many harm reduction programs go further than providing safe sex supplies to workers; they also teach protection and empowerment strategies, such as how to escape from a violent client, the use of a “buddy system” where sex workers team up to stay safe, and rule-setting so that workers like April can maintain control of each encounter and avoid potential harm. “I used to go wherever the client wanted and that’s when all the bad stuff happened,” says April. “Now I bring clients back to my own place where there are people around to protect me if something went wrong. Also, I try to stick to regular clients whom I can trust, and I don’t get high with them because they can get crazy.”
In addition to offering empowerment strategies and safe sex supplies to sex workers, harm reduction programs work to curb discrimination and stigma against this profession by treating workers will dignity and respect.
“I’m grateful to [the NCHRC] because they understand my situation and don’t judge me,” says April. “They’ve helped me through hard times, probably even saved me from HIV. I used to run my own cleaning business. I hope that I can stay safe and healthy long enough to leave sex work and start my own business again.”
For more information on harm reduction and sex workers visit the NC Harm Reduction Coalition website at www.nchrc.net.
Sex Work in the South
On Thursday, Sept 8th & Friday, Sept 9th, leaders of Southern nonprofits, human rights groups, policy makers, concerned citizens, public health officials and academics will gather to discuss drug use and sex work in the South and its implications for communities. With North Carolina having over 230,000 crack smokers and injection drug users, 17 million prescriptions for oxycodone issued for the state’s 9 million residents, and with drug overdose as NC’s 4th leading cause of death for 18-50 year olds, drug use and its effects permeate each of our communities. I recommend that anyone affected by this attend the conference. Our current policies have failed, it is time to look at new ways to address the problem. Bob Scott, former Captain of the Macon County Sheriff's Office in Franklin, NC said it best:
“I have seen the violent impact of the drug war from the perspective of a journalist and a law enforcement officer,” says conference speaker Bob Scott, former Captain at the Macon County Sheriff’s office. “Now as the ravages of the HIV/AIDS epidemic sweep through our communities, felling loved ones who have become addicted, I say there is something we can do to turn the tide.”
WHAT: Conference on Drug Use and Sex Work in the South
WHO: Hosted by the NC Harm Reduction Coalition, Research Triangle Institute, Atlanta Harm Reduction Center, Women With a Vision and the Harm Reduction Coalition
WHEN: Thurs, Sept 8th and Fri, Sept 9th from 9am-5pm
WHERE: RTI International, 3040 East Cornwallis Rd, Research Triangle Park, NC
WHO ELSE WILL BE THERE? The conference will bring together progressive and conservative activists & Democrats and members of the Tea Party, as well as organizations such as Human Rights Watch, North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, Sex Workers Without Borders, UNC, Duke, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Women with A Vision and Atlanta Harm Reduction to foster discussion and to look for solutions. Members of law enforcement and the N.C. legislature will join active sex workers and drug users on topics such as social justice, strategies to prevent HIV and hepatitis among drug users, overdose prevention, pill use in the South, drug policy reform, and syringe exchange. Other key discussion areas include drug use among migrant workers, sex workers, military veterans and people of transgender experience.
Thanks for posting this, sex worker issues need to be discussed
If people want to learn more about sex work I encourage them to attend the conference on drug use and sex work in the South, Sept. 8th and 9th at RTI in Durham, NC. You can sign up at:
http://nchrc.net/NCHRC/Conference_on_Drug_Use_in_the_South.html
There is a entry fee of $50 for both days of the conference and a discounted rate if you need a scholarship.
There will be 2 panels on sex work that include people who have worked with sex workers and people who have done sex work.
From Wiki on sex work:
A sex worker is a person who works in the sex industry. The term is usually used in reference to those in the sex industry that actually provide such sexual services, as opposed to management and staff of such industries. Some sex workers are paid to engage in sexually explicit behavior which involve varying degrees of physical contact with clients (prostitutes, escorts, professional dominants); pornography models and actors engage in sexually explicit behavior which are filmed or photographed. Phone sex operators have sexually-oriented conversations with clients, and do auditive sexual roleplay. Other sex workers are paid to engage in live sexual performance, such as web cam sex and performers in live sex shows. Some sex workers perform erotic dances and other acts for an audience (striptease, Go-Go dancing, Neo-burlesque, peep shows).
Thus, although the term is sometimes viewed as a synonym or euphemism for prostitute, it is more general.
Legality and social views:
Depending on regional law, sex workers' activities may be regulated, controlled, tolerated, or prohibited. In most countries, even those where sex work is legal, sex workers are stigmatized and marginalized, which can prevent them from seeking legal redress for discrimination (e.g., racial discrimination by a strip club owner), non-payment by a client, assault or rape. Social inequality and poverty are often seen as driving forces.
Sex Worker Advocacy:
Sex worker's rights advocates argue that sex workers should have the same basic human and labour rights as other working people. For example, the Canadian Guild for Erotic Labour calls for the legalization of sex work, the elimination of state regulations that are more repressive than those imposed on other workers and businesses, the right to recognition and protection under labour and employment laws, the right to form and join professional associations or unions, and the right to legally cross borders to work.
Who is North Carolina works with sex workers from a sex worker empowerment structure?
*North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition (risk reduction services and advocacy)
Robert Childs, MPH
Summit to Address Sex Work in the South
Summit on Sex Work in the South
Please save the date of December 2nd, 2011 for the Summit on Sex Work in the South.
This event will be hosted by the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, Asheville Sex Worker Outreach Project, Sex Workers Without Borders, Women with a Vision, North Carolina Sex Workers Alliance & Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive (HIPS) and will be attended by the awesome Human Rights Watch and other allies.
We will be discussing sex work in the South, human rights & sex work, the negative public health & criminal justice effects of criminalization of condoms, advocacy for sex worker related issues, risk reduction for sex workers, drug use & sex work, bad date reporting and more!
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Event Contacts:
1.) Sarah Danforth (828) 337-1257, sarahdanforth@hotmail.com
2.) Robert Childs, (336) 543-8050, robert@nchrc.net
Event Location: Downtown Asheville, NC
Event Time: We are scheduled to hold the summit from 9am-5pm on December 2nd, 2011.
Event Sign Up: If you would like to attend the event you can sign up at:
http://tinyurl.com/3jowsrq
*Please note that the sign up form is a google doc and thus some agencies may block the website, you can gain easily access to the website through mobile devices, library internet and home internet service if you have any trouble.
In solidarity!
Robert Childs & Tessie Castillo
Your Allies at the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition
http://www.nchrc.net
Read more: http://bluenc.com/summit-sex-work-south#ixzz1cPz6aQro
Robert Childs, MPH