Editorial Melissa Ditmore Sex workers from around the world took the opportunity of the United Nations High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS in June 2008 to thank United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon for his support of their efforts to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic. On March 26, 2008, the Report of the Commission on AIDS in Asia was released with a statement from the Secretary General. This excellent report calls for the decriminalization of sex work, and counsels governments and other actors to, “Avoid programmes that accentuate AIDSrelated stigma and can be counterproductive. Such programmes may include ‘crack-downs’ on red-light areas and arrest of sex workers.” Sex worker activists from around the world distributed a statement that “Sex workers support Ban Ki Moon” during his speech at the opening plenary.
Realistic efforts to include affected populations including sex workers are critical to combat the spread of HIV. Unfortunately, in some places and agencies, this approach is being abandoned in favor of judgemental and moralistic approaches, the same types of law-and-order efforts to contain HIV that contributed to the growth of the epidemic. Cambodia outlawed prostitution early in 2008, in order to avoid threatened sanctions from the US. Women’s Network for Unity, Cambodia’s union of sex workers, reported that since then brothels, bars, street areas, and karaoke clubs across the country have been closed or gone underground; hundreds of women have been arrested and imprisoned, many of whom have been beaten and raped by police and prison guards. WNU added that HIV prevention and care programs have collapsed. Sex workers in Cambodia called for the repeal of