The Global Working Group on HIV and Sex Work Policy was convened by the Global Network of Sex Work Projects to formulate sex workers’ and civil society groups response to the new UNAIDS Guidance note on Sex Work.

The group is a broad based coalition that believes in evidence-informed, rights-based programming in relation to HIV.

The Working Group held a meeting in Delhi in September 2007, with the support of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, to reformulate the UNAIDS policy so that it was consistent with the evidence of what works when addressing HIV in commercial sex settings, and consistent with UN human rights treaties and programming principles.

The group created the first draft of the reworked Guidance Note – it is available on http://sexworkpolicy.wordpress.com.

This document was sent to UNAIDS, with a cover letter clearly outlining sex workers’ concerns with the original guidance note, and suggestions for how UNAIDS should work with sex worker networks and other civil society organizations in order to move forward with a workable, rights based, evidence informed policy on sex work and HIV.

Sex workers groups say they hope that this initiative “is the start of a dialogue between sex worker organizations, HIV organizations, program implementers, governments, UNAIDS, UNFPA and the other cosponsors.”

A video on the launch of the first draft of the reworked Guidance Note in New Delhi is available on the same site.