Vivian Song

Sex workers tout legalization vs. AIDS

TORONTO — In the middle of the Global Village, in front of a satin-covered bed at the Stiletto Lounge, Chiu Hing Fung (wo)manned a stand demanding human rights for sex workers.

"If we decriminalize sex work and accept it as normal work, like lawyers and doctors, sex workers will have more bargaining power to ask clients to wear condoms and then HIV rates will decrease," Fung said through an interpreter who works with the Chinese advocacy group Zi Teng.

Fung is one of 30,000 delegates at the AIDS 2006 Conference who brought a message they hope will be heard the world over.

At a conference hosted by the Canadian AIDS Society, Anna-Louise Crago of Stella — a Montreal-based support group for sex workers — echoed the call saying legalizing the sex trade in Canada would help fight the scourge of HIV/AIDS.

Less control

"What criminalization does is put women in situations where they have less control of the work and puts them in isolation where they're cut off from resources with information and (condoms), " she said. "Criminalization is an obstacle to fighting HIV … if it's recognized as labour, sex workers would be able to work safely."

Fung is a slight, middle-aged woman who works full time as a sex worker in Hong Kong and makes no apologies for it.

She describes herself as "anti-traditionalist" and spoke proudly of her right to choose sex as a trade and her right to demand protection.