This article is published in partnership with the International Women's Health Coalition as part of a series of articles and opinion pieces on global AIDS and HIV in conjunction with the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, which ended this weekend. We welcome vigorous policy debates on these and other issues.

Watch Meena Seshu, co-founder of our Indian partner SANGRAM, deliver the Jonathan Mann Memorial Lecture at the International AIDS Conference (IAC) plenary yesterday in Vienna (her speech starts around the one hour mark in the taped webcast embedded above).

In her speech, Meena details SANGRAM’s path to success in working collaboratively with sex workers to claim their rights, including missteps based on good intentions. It’s interesting to hear these stories and see the way Meena’s thinking has evolved, and most importantly, how she has listened to the people she’s trying to help and let them take charge of their own projects, their health, and the destinies of their communities.

Here’s an excerpt from Meena’s follow-up post on the IAC website:

When I, an educated, upper-class woman began to spend time with sex workers as a population “vulnerable” to HIV, I found that they were treated almost as non-humans by society, and I could hardly fathom how they could live and work amidst so much social disdain and dismissiveness. I quickly realized that I knew nothing about them, their community, or their work. But, as I learned by letting them teach me, amongst themselves they were not disempowered. They managed their work, their clients, their families and the community that they made for themselves. AIDS was a terrible threat in their world, but they only needed the right tools, and they would manage AIDS too.

Read the complete article on rhrealitycheck.org.

View the video of Meena Seshu delivering the Jonathan Mann Memorial Lecture  at AIDS 2010.