A small intervention programme for brothelbased sex workers in Sonagachi (Calcutta, India) grew into a powerful organization of men and women fighting for their rights. At the start in 1992, 4000 brothelbased sex workers participated in a programme with the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (AIIH&PH), government organizations and NGOs. Called the Sonagachi STD/HIV Intervention Programme (SHIP), SHIP was designed to control and contain HIV/STDs among sex workers through clinical services, condom promotion and IEC, supported by a team of peer educators. Since 1997, the programme has employed 180 sex workers (active or retired) as peer educators, who were paid $1 per day, and 100 other workers and operated 12 health clinics.

As soon as SHIP started working in the red-light area, it became apparent that the social, political and economic complexities involved in the spread of the AIDS pandemic had to be addressed. Thus the Sonagachi project moved beyond the behavioural change and STD clinic approach and took on a much more holistic shape. Working with sex workers in Sonagachi and in other red-light districts, SHIP soon learned that sex workers themselves were the best agents of change to fight the AIDS epidemic. For sex workers to be most productive as agents of change however, many changes had to be made in their own lives and working conditions. Their human dignity has to be recognized, their occupation has to be accepted as a valid option, and the sex workers have to value their own lives and look forward to a meaningful future as legitimate citizens in a healthy society.

Given the asymmetrical power relations within the sex industry and the women's social exclusion, the only way sex workers could gain greater control over their own bodies, sexuality, income, health and lives was through mutual support, collective bargaining and united action. This realization led to the formation of several sex worker forums. One organization, the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC, Committee for Women's Coordination), was founded in 1995 in West Bengal and has more than 40,000 members, among whom  beside female sex workers (90%)  it also counts male and transgender sex workers. In November 1997, DMSC convened the First National Conference of Sex Workers in India in Calcutta. More than 3000 sex worker delegates from different areas of Calcutta and other parts of West Bengal and India attended the conference. This was the first time in the history of India that a group of sex workers rallied together and explicitly spoke of the rights and wrongs of their profession at a public forum.

In March 1998, during a follow-up meeting of the 1997 National Conference, the participants passed resolutions demanding workers' rights for sex workers and the formation of self-regulatory boards of sex workers to fight against exploitation within the sex trade. The DMSC also sent a deputation of representatives to meet the Prime Minister and the Vice President of India to demand workers' rights and an end to the atrocious conditions sex workers suffer from.

With informal support from SHIP, DMSC started a counselling and care programme for HIV-positive people from all backgrounds. The thrust of this initiative is to increase awareness about HIV/AIDS, reshape social constructs of people living with HIV/AIDS, and provide care and support to the population affected. DMSC has also started intervention programmes based on the Sonagachi model in several red-light districts of West Bengal.

Sustainability of any intervention programme depends on whether the ownership of the services and assets of the programme are effectively transferred to the target community. To ensure this, in April 1999 AIIH&P handed over the SHIP programme to a registered society constituted by workers of SHIP, the sex workers forums and representatives of government and nongovernment institutions. At present the programme is headed by a representative of the sex workers' community, symbolising the transfer of ownership.

The sex worker forums that SHIP enabled to set up act together in controlling HIV/AIDS much more effectively and coherently than a vertical intervention would have done. The underlying principles of the programme are:

• HIV/STD transmission is recognized as one of the main occupational hazards sex workers are exposed to, which can and does impair their wellbeing.
• SHIP feels that only if sex workers are in charge of running targeted intervention programmes, efficient and effective services can be ensured. Sex workers are in the best position to assess the real needs of the people in the sex industry. They have already established access and trust, and because they are best acquainted with the sexual behaviour and practices of sex workers and their clients, they know where and how to effect changes. With sex workers claiming ownership of such programmes from the beginning, sustainability will be better guaranteed.
• To confront and question the stigmatization and bias against prostitution, social and legal recognition of prostitution as a legitimate, valid occupation has to be secured. In claiming professional status as workers in a particular form of service industry, sex workers as professionals are obliged to offer safe services to their customers. This further strengthens their interest in controlling HIV/STD.
• Sex workers ought to gain control over the structural conditions that regulate their working lives and claim the right to selfdetermination. SHIP feels sex workers should be able to design, manage and run all HIV/STD intervention programmes for sex workers in order to protect their practical and strategic interests and to guarantee that they will not be targeted by moralising approaches.
• Carrying out practical and concrete programmes for HIV/STD prevention, enables sex workers to address the real and urgent needs of the their community and enhances their credibility and social position as able health managers and responsible citizens.