The Open Society Institute, along with its affiliate the Alliance for Open Society International, filed a lawsuit today against USAID to challenge its unconstitutional and dangerous policy of requiring grantees to sign a pledge opposing prostitution. Failure to endorse this loyalty oath means health workers across the world striving to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS could lose funding and be forced to abandon life-saving programs...This is in the context of an October 6, 2005 complaint from Congressman Mark Souder to USAID official James Kunder about a US-funded NGO "called Sampada Grameen Mahila Sanstha (SANGRAM) that had retraffcked women back into a brothel after they had been rescued by a State Department financed group."
...AOSI is administering a government grant awarded in 2002 to implement USAID’s Drug Demand Reduction Program in Central Asia, where HIV/AIDS is spread overwhelmingly through injection drug use and left unchecked will have a devastating social and economic impact. Since sex workers are at increased risk of using drugs, they are a prime target for this program’s interventions.
In his letter, Souder charged that USAID administrator Andrew Natsios was aware of SANGRAM's record.
