By Tais Plus Team

In October 2012 Ministry of Interior of Kyrgyzstan has initiated new draft bill to introduce an administrative offence for sex work. (also read background article here).

Tais Plus with numerous allies – organizations and individuals – implemented wide advocacy campaign to stop this initiative of Ministry of Interior. Finance support was provided by Urgent Action Fund. Bishkek Feminist Collective SQ has provided incredibly sounding promotion about all our efforts against new draft bill. Many people worldwide have learnt all our news in real time.

By Tais Plus

Today, December 20, 2012, a round table dedicated to the study "Respecting the Rights of Sex Workers in the Kyrgyz Republic" was held in Bishkek.

The study was conducted between May and August 2012 in six cities (Bishkek, Tokmok, Karakol, Osh, Jalalabad and Kyzyl-Kiya), which involved 590 sex workers and 33 employees of law enforcement agencies.

AKI Press - November 26, in the framework of "Stop the criminalization of sex workers in Kyrgyzstan" campaign public hearings took place in the City of Osh.
The director of public fund "Podruga" Nadezhda Sharonova reported that the main purpose of these public hearings is to attract attention of decision-makers, to the problem of illegal repression by the police against sex workers.

OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNMENT OF KYRGYZSTAN REGARDING PROPOSAL TO AMEND THE ADMINSTRATIVE CODE TO PENALIZE SEX WORK
November 12, 2012

4 internaitonal organizations expressed their concern with the proposed law to introduce administrative penalty for sex work in Kyrgyzstan.

by Tais Plus team

Dear friends and colleagues,

Ministry of internal affairs (MIA) in Kyrgyzstan announced about new initiative to criminalize sex workers by administrative regulation. Currently sex work in our country is decriminalized. On 17th of October main informational portals posted this news.

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).

In the end, Odyseus (Slovakia), SZEXE (Hungary), TAIS PLUS (Kyrgyzstan), Association for Assistance (Russia) and SWAN were accepted to present in front of the commissioners at a regional meeting in Moldova in May, 2011.

With the generous help of the Open Society Foundation, presenters from the various groups including Katerina Jiresova, Irina Maslova, Gulnara Kurmanova, Mariann Bodzsar, Stasa Plecas from Serbia who was representing SWAN and Aliya and Anna-Louise from the SWAN network met in Chisinau, Moldova to strategize.

The group decided that the strongest strategy was to brainstorm 4 key issues as they affected groups across the region and to present as a block. One person per issue and one person to summarize and spell out the recommended actions groups were calling on the Commission to endorse.

Read the statement in English

Read the statement in Russian

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 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.

By Marija Tosheva, HOPS, Macedonia

On July 20, 2010, the second day of Vienna conference, SWAN organized an oral session on Sex work, mobility, migration and human rights in Europe and Central Asia. 6 experienced activists from the region, members of SWAN and TAMPEP networks, had a chance in front of an excellent audience to challenge and start a discussion on vulnerabilities and structural barriers faced by mobile and migrant sex workers to better health and human rights.

July 18-23, Vienna, Austria – This year sex workers and allies from Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia had a chance to talk about barriers and issues that sex workers face in their countries, to show what groups and organizations have achieved in addressing the pandemics and violations in their region. The Sex Workers’ Rights Advocacy Network (SWAN) was represented by 11 activists from Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Macedonia and Montenegro, a team of young and energetic volunteers from Odyseus, Slovakia and a performance group from Bliss without Risk, Czech Republic.