Workshop to discuss creation of legal environment for sex workers |23 July 2018
The HIV Aids Support Organisation (Haso) will be organising a workshop this week with law enforcement officers on creating a conducive and legal environment for sex workers in Seychelles.
The half-day workshop for 10 senior police officers will take place tomorrow at the Berjaya Beau Vallon Bay Hotel.
The objective of the workshop is to sensitize law enforcement officers on sex work and its related health issues and to establish a partnership that can contribute towards decriminalisation of sex work and the protection of the human rights of sex workers in Seychelles.
This is the third from a series of workshop started by the Aids & Rights Alliance of Southern Africa (Arasa) in partnership with Haso and LGTBI Seychelles under the theme ‘Removing Legal Barriers’.
The first and second targeted service providers and members of the HIV committee and women caucus of the National Assembly to establish a partnership to pave the way for a conducive and enabling legal environment for sex workers in Seychelles.
The theme of the workshop is ‘Creating a conducive and legal environment forsex workers in Seychelles’.
Sex workers do not want to be rescued; they need their human rights to be respected.Sex workers are female, male, transgender adult and young people who receive money or goods in exchange for consensual sexual services, either regularly or occasionally, the UNAids manifesto says.
They are among the highest groups affected by HIV with a prevalence of 12 times higher than the general population.
According to an Integrated Behavioural and Biological Surveillance (IBBS) survey conducted in Seychelles (2015), the HIV prevalence among commercial sex workers was 4.6% compared to 1% in the general population. This survey also proved that sex work is one of the main drivers of the HIV epidemic in Seychelles.
Sex workers continue to face criminalisation, violence, stigma, discrimination and other form of human rights violation which increase their risk of acquiring HIV.
Based on that survey (2015), stigma and discrimination against sex workers was found to be high whereby 37.2% had experienced violence in the past years, 20.5% had been forced to have sex against their will and 50.6% had been arrested. Physical violence was most likely to be suffered from the hands of the steady partners or husband (34.5%), the onetime client (15.5%) and the police (13.8%).
In terms of arrests for female sex worker, the main reasons were loitering (16%), drug use (12%) and selling sex (7%).
Many of the human rights challenges, vulnerabilities and barriers sex workers face in accessing HIV services, are due to criminalisation and the restrictive laws, regulations and practices.
Sex work in Seychelles is criminalised as per sections 154 of the Penal code which states that soliciting in public is an offence, liable to imprisonment for two years, whereas section 155 prohibits the operation of a brothel. Section 156 addresses the encouragement or enticement of others for sex work which is an offence with a possible prison sentence of five years. Furthermore, section 143 and 144 deal with “prostitution for purposes of gain”. These laws present barriers for access to services, as sex workers tend to remain a hidden population with difficult access.
Without removing these barriers, sex work will continue to drive the HIV epidemic.