The Open Society Foundations has published a multi-country report uncovering the ways in which police destruction and confiscation of sex workers’ condoms puts sex workers at risk. The report, researched by sex worker advocacy groups in Kenya, Namibia, Russia, South Africa, the United States, and Zimbabwe, found that police often treat condoms as contraband and that prosecutors use possession of condoms as evidence of prostitution. The report further documents that police in all six countries harass and physically and sexually abuse sex workers who carry condoms and use the threat of arrest on the grounds of condom possession to extort and exploit them.
