Published on July 21, 2012 at 6:57 AM
"Discriminatory laws and policies, stigma, violence, and social exclusion all impede efforts to reach sex workers and their clients with effective HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support programs," the Lancet states, adding that "adults engaged in consensual sex work have the same rights as other individuals." The editorial notes that "Kolkata, India, will host an alternative event aptly named the Sex Worker Freedom Festival, which, after much negotiation, will be digitally and video-linked to the IAC," and concludes, "Restricting participation of sex workers in the U.S. meeting shamefully prohibits an effective response to the global HIV epidemic for sex workers, and all those at risk of infection" (7/21).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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