Application deadline: February 28, 2013.
Where: Summer School of Central European University (CEU), Budapest, Hungary
When: 15-19 June, 2013

Human rights litigation is one of the methods by which civil society organizations can bring about social change. This course for human rights professionals will develop the skills and knowledge needed to successfully bring cases to the regional human rights systems and the UN Treaty bodies, and to use those cases to achieve practical change. Participants will be invited to provide information on concrete cases that they are involved in which will be discussed during the course.

December 17, 2012. Budapest - SZEXE, the Association for the Rights of Sex workers has held a discussion and a screening of a film about sex workers in Hungary. "Where is the Truth?" features sex workers and their allies who describe the working conditions and safety issues of sex workers and how they affect their lives.

With the support and technical expertise of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU), the SZEXE team hopes to demystify the air around sex work and to bring more attention to what human rights violations sex workers face in their everyday life.

The 40-min film will soon be available in English and Russian.

Visit SZEXE website here: http://szexmunka.hu/

Follow and like on Facebook here.

By Anna-Louisa Crago
What is the Global Commission on HIV and the Law (GCHL)?
It is a commission put in place by the UN to study the impact of different laws on HIV-prevention, treatment and care. It also studies the impact of laws on discrimination and violence against people living with HIV or at high-risk of HIV.

The commissioners are a group of highly respected individuals and experts from around the world and include former heads of state, judges and policy experts. They are advised by a committee of technical experts with extensive knowledge about HIV and the law.

The commission is particular because it is independent of the UN. That means that the commissioners can come to their own conclusions, even if coutries within the UN or UN workers disagree with these.

What does the GCHL have to do with SWAN?

Individuals and groups from the CEE/CA, as well as other regions,were invited to submit testimony about the impact of different laws and HIV. SWAN submitted a submission that tried to include experiences from all across the region. Many other SWAN groups individually submitted such as HOPS (Macedonia), Lega-Life (Ukraine) and HESED (Bulgaria).

By Marija Tosheva, HOPS

In late June, 2011 the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, hosted a meeting in Budapest for 30 delegates from the countries of Central and South East Europe (SWAN was also represented), with supporters from Western Europe, to launch the Network of Low Prevalence Countries in Central and South East Europe – NeLP (http://nelp-hiv.org/budapest-declaration).

SWAN is seeking a responsible, accurate and communicative person for a part-time position of Administrative Assistant.

Application deadline: October 10, 2011
Read Terms of Reference here.

Issue 1 of 2011 features:
*  an interview with an HIV positive person, who tells the readers about his life and illness, warning sex workers to always use a condom and to pay attention to their health, no matter what requests they get.
* an article about the current grant from Mama Cash won by SZEXE.
* a short report from SZEXE legal aid provider on the new legislation on misdemeanors and its effects.
* history of Easter
* professional tips for sex workers
* a reports on a garbage collection campaigns, with photos. The campaign aimed at clearing the territories where street sex workers are active, in order to make local residents more tolerant towards sex workers and to make sex workers more aware of their environment and the damages they may cause to it through littering, throwing away plastic bottles, condoms and other garbage.
* a call for participation in its newly launched project under TAMOP program, with support from the European Social Fund and the Hungarian governement, aiming for holding health prevention events for sex workers.

Read in Hungarian here.

The Association of Hungarian Sex Workers carried out a postcard campaign with SWAN support on December 17th. We prepared the attached postcard with the picture taken at the red umbrella march which also celebrated our association’s 10th birthdays. We sent the postcards to our key partners, newspaper and magazine editors, members of parliament, decision makers, NGOs, as well as to international networks. This was the first occasion when we used the power of choosing and delivering our own message; usually we are represented in the media in the form of quotes, reports or interviews. We think that this is a proactive method to catch the public’s attention, so we decided to put a greater emphasis on new media initiatives (promoting sex worker blogs, advocacy videos, etc.) in the future. We got positive feedback so far: several journalists contacted us who we were not in contact before.

The Association of Hungarian Sex Workers (SZEXE) celebrated its 10 year anniversary on the September 20th, 2010. The celebration included a short media sensitization and information session using SWAN materials and then speeches Ms. Ágnes Földi, chairwoman of the organization and Mr. Tamás Árva, the legal aid provider of the Association.

An article by a Hungarian sex worker
Before I tell you about my experience in Vienna, I would first like to congratulate everybody who put so much effort into organising the Journalist session and the Sex Workers Pre-Conference meeting. It was a joy, a pleasure and an honour to partake in these meetings as a Sex Worker and if I was asked to partake again, I would gladly do it.

By Aliya Rakhmetova
July 16, Vienna, Austria - The International AIDS Conference (IAC) was preceded by a number of events to provide space for journalists, communities representatives, networks and researchers to make their participation in the IAC as meaningful as possible. In the framework of the IAC, SWAN was invited to hold a training with the National Press Foundation (http://www.nationalpress.org), whose primary mission is to increase journalists’ knowledge of complex issues in order to improve public knowledge.