Sex Workers and the Criminalization of Condoms

HIV prevention programs globally recognize the importance of ensuring sex workers have access to condoms. Yet before sex workers can use condoms, they need to be able to carry and keep them. In countries around the world—including the United States—police are actively engaged in stopping and searching sex workers and confiscating or destroying condoms found in their possession. In other cases, police use possession of condoms as grounds to arrest or detain people on charges of sex work. In some jurisdictions courts allow condoms to be used as evidence to convict people on prostitution-related charges.

At a recent event, the Open Society Foundations released a report that documents the police practice of using condoms as evidence of prostitution and its impact on sex workers’ lives, including their vulnerability to HIV. Activists from New York, South Africa, and Zimbabwe who were involved in the research discussed the report and the implications of these policing practices on sex workers and their communities.

Listen above.