On the inauguration of Sex Worker Pride, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) joins the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+) and the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW) in announcing our full and unwavering support for HIV2020, given the IAS decision to host the 2020 International AIDS Conference (AIDS2020) in a country that has legal travel restrictions for sex workers - the USA - for the second time in a decade. We stand in solidarity with GNP+, ICW, INPUD, ITPC, MPact, and Mexican HIV activists, who we are working with to organise the community-led alternative event on 5 - 7 July 2020 in Mexico City.

NSWP has long been vocal in its concerns over the choice of the USA as a host country for AIDS2020. Travel restrictions affecting sex workers, people who use drugs and people with a criminal record, as well as people from predominantly Muslim countries and some countries in Central America, create a significant barrier for many sex workers to participate in the conference. Specifically, the USA legally restricts visas for sex workers, people who use drugs and people who have two or more convictions, which given the criminalisation of sex work in many countries, will preclude many sex workers, as well as other criminalised key populations, from attending and participating in the AIDS2020 in San Francisco and Oakland. The very serious deterioration of respect for human rights under the current Trump administration has made the country a hostile and unsafe place for our community and other criminalised, stigmatised and discriminated communities, including people living with HIV.

The decision to host AIDS2020 in the USA is at odds with the five values of the International AIDS Society, which include being human rights-focused and inclusive and encouraging of meaningful engagement with people living with HIV and key populations. In 2012, the IAC was held in Washington and as a protest about the USA travel restrictions NSWP organised the Sex Worker Freedom Festival, an alternative event held in Kolkata, India, which was attended by hundreds of sex workers from around the world. The decision to hold another conference in the USA, a mere 8 years later, is unacceptable. Read more via NSWP