Mainline presents its annual report 2010. A special anniversary edition, celebrating twenty years of pioneering work in harm reduction. Read the extract below or download the entire report.

Indonesia, sex and karaoke

Laras is the name of an organization that supports women in Indonesia who sing in karaoke bars and also work as prostitutes. Mainline supports Laras. Last year, the organization did a lot of work establishing a good structure, introducing the use of HIV testing, and initiating a project within the continuum-of-care framework.

The name “Club Love” reveals that singing is not the only entertainment that the karaoke bars in Indonesia have to offer. It’s mainly the large bars outside the cities that also operate as brothels. Almost all the women who work as singers here earn most of their money as sex workers. Some of them use drugs and/or are infected with HIV. The problem is that they often have no access to regular health care, because it is concentrated in the cities, and also because there is a major social taboo against prostitution and drug use.

Self
Laras stands up for these women, and since 2009 they have been supported by Mainline. This support is based on the philosophy that the organizations develop their own plans, and that Mainline supports them in implementing these plans and making contact with other organizations. According to Patrick O’Gorman, who is involved in Mainline’s Asian activities, Laras operates in three areas. The first involves getting things better organized. O’Gorman: “For example, Laras started using QuickBooks, which resulted in transparent bookkeeping, as well as the ability to measure the impact of its activities”. Laras also achieved significant progress in terms of services. O’Gorman: “Laras trained six employees as VCTs (Voluntary HIV Antibody Counseling and Testing), and introduced quick HIV testing. This paved the way for Laras to refer the women to public services for further treatment”.

Pakistan 
In early 2010, Laras visited Nai Zindagi in Pakistan. With support from Mainline, Nai Zindagi works on projects including one where people who use (or used to use) drugs run their own farm according to the “continuum of care” principle. The project cannot depend on subsidies, and needs to become self-financing.Laras began a similar project in East Kalimantan in 2010. As part of this project, Laras visited the Mysore project in India that specializes in property issues regarding sex workers.

Normalization

According to O’Gorman, these three examples led to a normalization of the assistance provided to sex workers in the karaoke villages. VCTs provide HIV testing, and make further referrals where necessary. Infected women who can no longer be employed as sex workers will probably be able to take part in the project in East Kalimantan as early as 2011.