Turkey: The second blanket ban on LGBTI+ events in Ankara has also been lifted!

The second indefinite ban on LGBTI+ activity was lifted in Ankara, which was declared by the document submitted to the Police by the Governor's Office in 2018. The governor's office was unable to provide the court with any concrete documents relating to the justification for the ban.

US: Terrence McNally, celebrated playwright who chronicled gay lives, dies at 81 from coronavirus

Terrence McNally, a prolific, much-honored playwright who rose to the forefront of American theater with a humane and lyrical style in works such as “Love! Valour! Compassion!” and “Master Class,” died March 24 at a hospital in Sarasota, Fla. He was 81.

China: The volunteer driver in Wuhan

On the day of China’s Lantern Festival, 8 February, Shen Ming was making sweet dumplings, the traditional festival delicacy, at his home in Wuhan in China’s Hubei Province. From time to time, he would raise his head to watch the local news on the television to get the latest on the COVID-19 outbreak.

These South Korean women went abroad to get married. Then one spoke out at home, and the backlash began.

Kim Kyu-jin doesn't describe herself as an activist. That's a label that tends to scare people in South Korea's conformist society. She sees herself as just a working woman who wanted to get married to the person she loves.

UNAIDS: Addressing Coronavirus in African Countries With High HIV Rates: An Interview With UNAIDS Head Winnie Byanyima

TheBodyPro worked with Mworeko and Raphael to come up with questions for Byanyima, who did this interview—her first full-length conversation since COVID-19 started—from her Geneva apartment during a chaotic week that saw the office shifting to “tele-working” and the news shifting every day.

Europe: SEX WORKERS NEED IMMEDIATE FINANCIAL SUPPORT AND PROTECTION

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ICRSE is calling for national governments to urgently act to ensure that sex workers, along with their families and communities, can access social protections during the COVID-19 pandemic. As more countries impose lock downs, self-isolation and travel restrictions many sex workers will lose most, or all, of their income and face financial hardship, increased vulnerability, destitution or homelessness. The often criminalized nature of sex work also means that many will be unable to access the safeguards provided for other workers, such as sick pay.

Many sex workers come from communities that already face high levels of marginalization and social exclusion including people living in poverty, migrants and refugees, trans people and drug users. Sex workers who are the primary earners in their families, or who don't have alternative means of support are at risk of being forced into more precarious and dangerous situations to survive.

Sex workers in our region are already reporting:

  • Drastic loss of income

  • Closure of workplaces

  • Lack of funds to pay for basic needs, support family members and dependents

  • Inability to access community  health services which have shut down or decreased their activities

  • Increased pressure to take risks while working in order to secure income

This pandemic is revealing, with extreme urgency, the ways in which sex workers are forced to operate on the margins, in precarious circumstances, without the protections enjoyed by other workers.

ICRSE supports efforts by governments to control transmissions of the virus. However, public health measures that do not consider the circumstances of the most marginalized groups put their overall success at risk. In providing emergency measures and relief, governments must ensure that they reach workers who are excluded from the formal economy.

As a minimum government’s must urgently provide:

  • Immediate, appropriate and easy-to-access financial support for sex workers in crisis,

  • No eviction and emergency housing for homeless sex workers

  • A firewall between immigration authorities and health services

  • Access to health care for all sex workers, irrespective of their immigration status

All measures related to sex work must be based on public health and human rights principles and be developed in consultation with sex workers and their organisations to limit their negative impact. This unprecedented crisis calls for meaningful collaboration between all sectors of society, including those most marginalized. Only by involving sex workers do governments stand a chance to limit the pandemic and  eventually end it. “Sex workers are not the problem, we are part of the solution’

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