Abstract

Between 2004 and 2008, sex workers in Zambia experienced a period of severe state repression. This coincided with a number of government official blaming sex workers for HIV and the passing of a national curlew law. Repression occurred through the detention and displacement of sex workers and was implemented through high levels of verbal, physical and sexual violence by police. The public scapegoating of sex workers for HIV by state-actors led to an increase in social repression by members of the public-at-large. This period of repression is analysed in relation to national and transnational policy on sex work and HIV. Zambia's policy approach to HIV and prostitution embodies many of the current UNAIDS directives and the policy orientation of PEPFAR (The United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), of which it is a major recipient. As such, this research provides important findings of the impacts of such policy approaches that are of relevance far beyond the Zambian context. This thesis offers a critical analysis of the state repression. It considers the official institutional record of HIV in Zambia through government and transnational policies. Qualitative interviews with sex workers provide an alternative account of HIV in Zambia in terms of its impact, as well as its relation to state policy. During this period, sex workers simultaneously grappled with the toll of HIV on their community. Stigma and blame mediated their access to information, prevention, treatment and care. Sex workers resisted these conditions individually and collectively in a number of ways.