Speakers: Hazera Bagum, of Bangladesh’s Durjoy Nari Shangho, a sex workers rights group and a UNAIDS best practices program.
Raju Ahmed, a Bangladeshi activist who has worked with sex workers of all genders for over 5 years and has been involved in Durjoy's activities.
Kristen Freeland, Program Associate, Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center.

Session will be conducted in English and Bengali, with English translation provided.
Handouts will be provided by SWP in English.
There will be audience particpation in the form of a short survey and participants will be encouraged to ask questions throughout.

The panel discussion will present the complex issues faced by sex workers which are compounded by criminalization, racism, sexism, homophobia/transphobia, poverty, migration and immigration. The discussion will focus on how legal and social policies exacerbate violence from police officers and clients who are able to harm with impunity, and how the system affects those seeking legal status and/or viable employment outside the industry.
We will also being showing a short film, "Taking the Pledge," which documents the consequences of US government funding restrictions requiring organizations to adopt an 'Anti-Prostitution' pledge. This pledge undermines the crucial work of organizations around the world by requiring them to condemn the very population they work to help.
Discussion will then go into the inaccurate and problematic conflation of prostitution with trafficking which serves to undermine the true debate around migration and workers rights.
We will conclude with a discussion of media and policy advocacy methods that can be employed to re-direct attention to what crucial services and human rights are needed rather than the current focus on society's moral anxieties.