STAR (sex worker rights activist group) of Macedonia designed and launched a calendar for 2010, to mark December 17th and sex workers’ rights. The calendar may be downloaded from SWAN's website here in pdf format, and quality print versions may be requested from the STAR team (write to SWAN coordinator to swan@tasz.hu ).

STAR Newsletter is celebrating its 1 year of existence! Read issue 9 here. It features, among other articles, confession of a sex worker, quotes from famous people. There is a sex advice column, and information on sexual rights. Those interested can check what the Egyptian horoscope holds for them.

The 10th issue of the STAR newsletter From Us to US is dedicated to December 17 and the issues of human rights. Read Issue 10 here.

Sex worker's and allies are coming together in front of the Arizona Department of Corrections on December 18th in Phoenix, as part of International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers, an annual event to call attention to violence committed against sex workers all over the globe. Marcia Powell was a prisoner of the State of Arizona who collapsed and died from heatstroke last May after being locked in an outdoor cage and ignored for four hours in 107 degree heat.

You are invited to join in Tucson, Arizona on December 17, 2009 (performance art/public installation and a candlelight vigil) and in Phoenix, Arizona on December 18, 2009 (protest rally on the steps of the Arizona Department of Corrections). Bring red umbrellas, to stand in solidarity! Signs are welcome.

Budapest, 1 December, 2009 -- A first issue of HETERAK is issued in Hungary. The newsletter is dedicated not only to Hungarian sex workers and the situation with sex work in Hungary, but also to the situation in the world.

Download the HETERAK in pdf format here.

"From us to us" published by STAR, a Macedonian sex workers’ rights activists group covers local and international news about sex work and provides an overview of various opinions on trafficking. Read Issue 7 and Issue 8 in Macedonian.

In its summer issue Women’s Net Newsletter publishes the results of a writing workshop organised by Sisonke (Johannesburg) and the Wits Writing Centre and supported by the Reproductive Health & HIV Research Unit (RHRU) and the Tswaranang Legal Advocacy Centre. Five personal stories written by African sex workers are brought together under the title Johannesburg Sex Workers Speak Out. Read the stories here in English.

A report supported by OSI and authored by Jayne Arnott and Anna-Louise Crago coveres issues of human rights violations of female, male, and trans sex workers in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa.

Despite enormous challenges, sex workers are organizing to protect their rights and demand an end to violence and discrimination. In addition to the published report, sex workers who participated in the research and related roundtable discussions describe through audio taped interviews the effects of these rights abuses and how they are organizing to respond. Read and listen in English here.

Last year 5,066,549 people from around the world, civil society organizations and governments signed on to Say NO, sending the urgent message to governments everywhere that ending violence against women and girls must be a top priority.
This November, UNIFEM will take the initiative one step further and launch a new platform for action, Say NO–UNiTE to End Violence against Women. It is UNIFEM’s contribution to the UN Secretary-General’s campaign to end violence against women involving governments, civil society and the entire UN system.
Say NO–UNiTE will count and showcase actions taken by individuals, organizations and governments worldwide to end violence against women. Whether you volunteer at a shelter, reach out to students, advocate for better laws and policies — every action counts.
Add your name to become part of a global community rising to say NO to violence against women and girls here.

6 to 8 November 2009
Salzburg, Austria
The erotic remains a tantalisingly difficult concept to describe or delineate – a quality we all understand in our subjective experience and affective reflections but find difficult to bound or delimit in our intellectual work. Whilst most engagements with the erotic recognise a relationship between the erotic and the sexual, it is clear that the erotic presents a far more complex and discursive space within which the phenomenological, aesthetic, scientific and normative understanding of issues of human sensuality, sexuality, desire and taste can be articulated. This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary project, now calling for participation in its fifth conference, aims to explore the challenging and aradoxical nature of the 'erotic'.

Sex Workers Rights Advocacy Network (SWAN – www.swannet.org) is looking for partners in Poland and Azerbaijan. We invite civil society organizations who work with sex workers to learn more about SWAN and it’s founding principles and send their letters of interest to SWAN@TASZ.HU not later than July 20, 2009.

Asian Pacific Network of Sex Work plans to organize a Sex Worker Art Exhibition called 'The face of sex work'. This will be a space for visual art. The organizers plan to set up a multi-media exhibition where sex workers messages on HIV and Human rights issues are presented directly from our communities to conference goers in an unmediated format- the Sex workers speaking for themselves. This will allow non English speaking sex workers to present their issues through art and performance and communicate sex workers issues and ideas.