Scarlet Alliance - Lobbying

Lobbying

Scarlet Alliance is a key advocate and participant in HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention work in Australia. Sex worker communities in Australia have high rates of condom use, and low rates of STIs, including HIV/AIDS. The Australian sex industry's low rates of STIs and HIV has been attributed to sex worker communities self organizing to form peer led sex worker advocacy organisations in the early years of the HIV epidemic. Sex worker organisations, including Scarlet Alliance, employed community development principles to educate sex workers, sex industry business owners and sex industry clients about the need to adopt safer sex practices and harm reduction strategies to avoid potentially contracting HIV. Scarlet Alliance continues to lobby state and national governments about the difficulties of effective HIV prevention whilst sex work remains a criminalized occupation.

Scarlet Alliance has advocated for the rights of migrant sex workers for more than 15 years, and currently works to assist the Australian government to develop anti-trafficking policy which does not single out the sex industry for "raids and rescues". Scarlet Alliance advocates for the provision of work visas for migrant sex workers. The organisation argues that through accessing legal migration options, migrant sex workers are less susceptible to entering into verbal "debt bondage" contracts as an incentive to obtain passage to, and work within, Australia.

Scarlet Alliance's objectives, policies and current campaign issues are available on their website.