Human Rights Watch
No Pro Turkey

In 1995 an international organisation, Human Rights Watch produced a report on Women's Human Rights. It is a book which and is widely available. (ISBN 0-300-06546-9) It includes a section on Reproduction Sexuality and Human Rights Violations which includes discussion about forced vaginal examinations of women in Turkey. The examinations test virginity and recent sexual activity and are used to determine if a woman is a prostitute or not. Human Rights Watch is concerned about these tests being used on women who are not prostitutes. It provides an account of the experiences of a wrongfully accused German tourist in Turkey, Angelika.

The report explicitly states that detaining women against their will and forcing them to undergo vaginal examination is acceptable if they are proven to be prostitutes. This is justified by reference to the UN Center for Human Rights and the World Health Organisation Report of an International Consultation on AIDS and Human Rights, Geneva, July 26 1989.

The report says:

Governments may only derogate from fundamental human rights in order to protect health only where three stringent conditions are met..." there must be a specific law which is accessible and which contains foreseeable standards as opposed to administrative policy or individual discretion not based upon legal rules" The law must be shown to be strictly required to serve a legitimate purpose of society for which there is a pressing need. And the measures adopted must be the least intrusive available and strictly proportional to the urgent purpose they are designed to serve. Forced virginity tests fail to meet any of these conditions exams... if such exams were defensible on urgent public health grounds, the requirement that they be strictly proportional would mean that only women proven to be, and not just suspected of, working as prostitutes could be required to undergo testing for sexually transmitted diseases." p437

Since the tests being discussed are for virginity and the presence of sperm and not sexually transmitted diseases it is difficult to see why Human Rights Watch have branched out from defending the rights of "innocent" women into suggesting a "proper" use for human rights violations. It is appalling that their ideas about when a woman should be detained and forced to submit to vaginal examination are based on unstated ideas about how to protect public health. We wonder if you took a group of sex workers and the staff of Human Rights Watch and compared condom use in the two groups just who would be the threat to so-called public health!

With human rights advocates like these who needs enemies?

It is particularly worrying that this misguided advocacy is justified by a WHO report on human rights. This raises the history of advocacy for sex workers rights in the UN system in general and WHO in particular. Sex workers have been consistently excluded from important international policy making arenas throughout the pandemic. Advocates are rarely invited to consulatative meetings. Sex work issues are dealt with by WHO and other major agencies by professional health service providers, not sex workers. Even most of the international AIDS conferences have had service providers rather than sex workers represented on the committees which plan the conferences. (the Amsterdam conference organised by Harvard Aids Institute was a notable exception and the material presented on sex work was quantifiably better than in other years.)

UNESCO are sponsoring an anti-prostitution meeting in Paris next week. The Scottish Prostitutes Education Project is currently subject to a hearing at local government level to answer charges that they are "encouraging women to sell their bodies " by providing condoms and social and medical support rather than rehabilitation. And that is just Europe in one week! Neither Collectif Olympia ( the French NGOs working with sex workers ) or SCOTPEP can produce an authoritative document which supports their work or specifically advocates sex workers' human rights. WHO had a sex work project for more than four years and we have nothing which could be construed as a definitive defence of the human rights of sex workers. Where did the millions go?

The Network of Sex Work Projects urges you to support sex workers struggle to be heard. Demand to know why sex workers are not represented at meetings you attend. Ask organisations who work on HIV and human rights what steps they have taken to consult with sex workers. Offer to help local sex workers link in to other sex worker organisations, either directly or via the NSWP. Support funding applications by sex work organisations run by sex workers. Express your solidarity by using the words "sex worker" not the patronising "CSW" label the AIDS industry has created for us.