Sex-worker's meet opens in Kolkatta

[Guest guest]

Sex-worker's meet

A seven-day long Shanti Utsab begins on Sunday at the Salt Lake

stadium, organised by the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, reports

a staff reporter. Over 5,000 delegates, including those from south-

east Asia, Europe, the US and South America, will take part in the

festival, the central theme of which is promotion of sex-workers'

rights.

The meet comes soon after an incident in Nippani near Belgaum in

Karnataka in which 30 members of VAMP, an organisation of sex-workers

trying to control the spread of HIV, were thrown out of a building

they had legally bought.

The slogan adopted by the festival's organisers is " a space for all

and all for peace " . Several new issues will be taken up, said Salma

Kartini, secretary of the Asia-Pacific Sex workers' Network.

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