SWAN News: Was this the first time HOPS participated in the IHRA?
Through the years, HOPS representatives have attended different IHRA, mainly as regular participants and recently with poster presentations. This was the first time that HOPS gave an oral presentation, plus in major session 🙂

SWAN News: Was this the first time HOPS participated in the IHRA?
Through the years, HOPS representatives have attended different IHRA, mainly as regular participants and recently with poster presentations. This was the first time that HOPS gave an oral presentation, plus in major session 🙂

SN: What were the highlights of your experience?
Having the chance to present at such important international event was a highlight in and of itself – especially presenting in the area of sex worker related issues, which is still searching to its place in the harm reduction events. In addition to this, meeting wonderful people, old friends, new friends, all dedicated activists from around the world always bring a new wave of inspiration and motivation for future work. A very positive experience was also meeting and visiting colleagues from the local Liverpool- based organization, The Armistead Centre, which offer sexual and health services for LGBT people and sex workers. They organized a very warm welcoming event in their drop-in centre, where the international guests and hosts had a chance to share information on sex workers’ issues from their countries. The Macedonian video “You must know about me” was also screened there. The most impressive to me was introducing the great collaboration between sex workers project and Merseyside police units, who work together in combating the violence (with special focus on sexual violence) against sex workers. Seeing the police members at the welcoming event together with sex workers activists and supporters, hearing the fact that 90% of reported cases between 2005 -2009 are solved and perpetrators are convicted, and that rape rate over the last year was 40%, was a real inspiration and hope that in a period of time, trough a committed work we can get there too..

SN: Did you feel sex workers and sex worker issues had a big presence at the conference?
At IHRA 2010, 2 sessions were dedicated to sex worker related issues. There was one major session, entitled “War against sex workers” where US policy and its effects, Swedish model on criminalizing clients, UK situation and Macedonian case study on systematic rights violations through police raid and force testing were presented. Another concurrent session with UK project representatives gave a very clear picture about UK situation and their experiences gained through direct support of sex workers. One more presentation bridging the sex worker and drug user projects was held, with several poster presentations. All sessions were well attended, have had very clear massages, and this was obvious from the good follow-up questions and discussions, but I still have a feeling that a greater focus on sex work issues at the conference was needed. In some regions, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, sex workers projects are raised from drug related harm reduction projects, they are based on harm reduction principles, and they share the same problems and challenges, so having the space to mutually discuss it on a bigger scale is important for both communities. As some of the audience noticed, the “war against sex workers” has similar elements and tools used in the “war against drugs”, and conferences like this are the exact place where joint platforms based on solidarity can be built and fostered.

Healthy Options Project Skopje (HOPS) www.hops.org.mk
Contact person: Marija Tosheva, marijat@hops.org.mk