From Mexico with Love

I had dreams of blogging every day from Mexico with updates of the latest news from the International Aids Conference. I was going to be the Carrie Bradshaw of the development world and at the end of the night sit on my bed and blog away on my laptop. Well, those dreams have been thwarted! First of all I arrive very late on the 2nd of August so decide to lug my laptop to the conference venue alongside my usual ‘suitcase’ (that’s what my friends and perhaps my enemies call my usual handbags, well you never know when you might need a good book, a notebook, a sanitiser.) I reckon that since the world world is ‘wi-fi’d’ I will at the appropriate time find a nice café, order a herbal tea and blog. Anyway, I get to the conference venue an.d find that registration includes picking up your delegate bag which is no ordinary bag…my delegate bag is filled with some goodies…AIDS 2008 branded condoms, a USB pen, a really cute condom bag (which I think will serve other purposes) and the BIGGEST programme books I have ever seen! This programme book is about the size and thickness of 5 version of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. To make things worse I have to pick up two delegate bags, one for myself and our Executive Director who is arriving in Mexico several days later. So there I am lugging 4 suitcases around Centro Banamex looking very un-like Carrie. To make matters worse I find out that my laptop is not working and I do not have the right adaptor for Mexico. I am also showing my ‘johnny just come’ nature to season conference attendees who are travelling lightly. Over lunch I get chatting to some comrades from the Carribean and for some reason the issue of me carrying two delegate bags comes up. ‘Oh but I had to pick up my ED’s bag, she doesn’t get here till the 5th’ I respond. ‘How many times have you attended this conference’ queries Ms Carribean. ‘This is my first time’. ‘That’s why, in future you won’t pick up any bags for your colleague…’
Fast forward to the pre-conference satellite session organised by the International AIDS Women Caucus where I hear the inspirational Stephen Lewis ( I blogged about his address earlier) who is also a huge supporter and donor to AWDF’s HIV/AIDS fund. Some of the panel speakers include Nyaradzayi Gumbovonda, Secretary General of the World YWCA, Purnima Mane, Deputy Executive Director (Programmes), UNFPA, Allesandro Nilo, Justice Works, Susan Sippel, Elizabeth Maguire, President and CEO of IPAS, Meena Saraswathi Seshu and Neelanjana Mukhia from ActionAid International. I am particularly inspired by Nyaradzayi ( the world YWCA is also a grantee partner of AWDF) who speaks about the feminisation of the AIDS epidemic in Africa and the need to recognise the faces behind the epidemic and not just think in terms of statistics. Susan shares her personal testimony as a person living positively and the lack of space for women to claim their sexual and reproductive rights. Neelanjana talks about the women won’t wait campaign and Meena probably gives me the most food for thought on ‘Sex work, HIV/AIDS and Human Rights’. The case Meena appears to be making is that it is wrong for feminists to treat all sex workers as victims and that adult sex workers should be treated as workers and accorded the same rights that all other workers are entitled too’. Now as a feminist who has read Andrea Dworkin, who has real issues with porn (apart from the new female friendly ones), who thinks that no one out of their own free will chooses to work in the sex industry I really struggle to accept that some women will choose to be sex workers (apart from the new crop of elite sex workers I have read about in magazines like Marie Claire who charge £5,000 per session). So the question I posed to Meena in the Q&A session is that ‘Why will any woman freely choose to be a sex worker?’ Her paraphrased response is that as adults sex workers have the right to make their own choices. I agree with the principle of human beings having the right to make their own choices and I agree with Meena that it is wrong for the police and military to brutalise sex workers. I also agree that sex work should not be criminalised. However I have a real struggle trying to accept that some adults freely choose to be sex work. One of the great things that I have seen at the IAC are poster exhibitions telling the stories of various people living with HIV. Many of these posters have featured people who were sexually abused, raped, infected with HIV and had no choice but to turn to sex work for survival. The question I ask myself is that ‘having become a sex worker, should the emphasis be on giving you skills, education and resources to pursue an alternate career or should you be given workers rights’? What are your thoughts?

Nana Sekyiamah
Programme Officer
Fundraising & Communications