Zev Porat

Saturday, August 4, 2012

AIDS used as reason to legalize prostitutes


Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., accompanied by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., speaks during a session entitled: 'The U.S. Congress and the Global AIDS Epidemic" Wednesday, July 25, 2012, at the XIX International AIDS Conference in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)Pro-prostitution groups are latching onto the global AIDS epidemic to push for worldwide legalization of the world’s oldest profession.
The effort, being sold as a way to prevent HIV/AIDS infections, got a boost from a report backed by the United Nations that says selling sex should be legal and from speakers at last week’s world AIDS Conference in Washington, including a member of Congress who vowed to open U.S. anti-AIDS funds to groups that support the legalization or practice of prostitution.
“We need a law that gets commercial sex work out of dangerous places and into safe ones,” Cheryl Overs, senior researcher at Australia’sMonash University and a leading advocate of sex-worker rights, told the 19th International AIDS Conference.
The Global Commission on HIV and the Law recently called for an end to “punitive” laws that are “stifling” efforts to prevent HIV transmission.
The commission of global leaders and specialists, backed by the United Nations Development Program and Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, spent 18 months discussing sex work, drug use and laws criminalizing HIV status.

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