an Eldis Resource
Sex Worker Health and Rights: Where is the Funding?
This report aims to stimulate more constructive conversations about how to promote greater and better thought-out funding for sex worker health and rights.
Authors:
J. Dorf
Publisher:
Open Society Institute and Soros Foundations Network, 2006
There are a growing number of sex worker organisations and allied non-governmental organisations (NGOs) emerging to deal with the range of health and human rights issues faced by sex workers. But according to this report, the availability and provision of funding has not kept pace with the growth of these organisations. This report seeks to gauge the extent of existing funding for sex worker health and rights organisations (SWHROs), and to examine the implications for the donor community, as well as for groups around the world that work on sex worker rights and health issues. It draws on information obtained from interviews and questionnaires received from donors and SWHROs in the North and South, working at local, regional and international levels. The report makes several recommendations to donors, including:
?Take a rights-based approach to funding sex worker health and rights programmes - this can be useful to help navigate the sometimes thorny and sensitive discussions that can occur with staff and trustees of private foundations and public institutions around funding sex work health and rights programmes
?Understand that anti-trafficking and sex worker health and rights are not mutually exclusive funding areas - as people may be trafficked for sex work
? Support capacity-building and general operating expenses of organisations
?Share information with other donors - this helps to alleviate situations when there are gaps in funding.
Strategies to help SWHROs to obtain funding are also presented. The report urges SWHROs to try both local and international sources, to keep in touch with donors and ask them to identify and provide contacts with other donors, and to monitor the sex worker rights movement for new funding opportunities.
