Photo by NCinDC

A report published today by Human Rights Watch says that police officers in D.C.—along with their counterparts in other cities—have confiscated condoms from sex workers and used the number of condoms they are carrying as justification for arresting them for breaking prostitution laws:

Police in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and San Francisco are confiscating condoms from sex workers and transgender women, undermining health department campaigns to reduce HIV, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

In the section of the report that focuses on D.C., sex workers complained that they would often be stopped by police officers, questioned and searched. If they were carrying multiple condoms, they said, they could be threatened with arrest for allegedly breaking the city’s prohibition on prostitution.

These complaints aren’t new. Ever since the D.C. Council allowed police to establish Prostitution-Free Zones in 2006—where gathering in groups or loitering can be used as justification for dispersal or arrest—sex workers have said that simply carrying condoms has been used by police as justification in asking them to leave an area. (The council recently debated a bill that would allow police to establish the zones permanently.)

“Fear of taking condoms is a real problem,” said Jenna Mellor, Director of Outreach for HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive), to researchers from the human rights group. “Clients take fewer condoms than they need because they fear the police. They also hide condoms in their clothes, their wigs, their cleavage, in order to avoid being hassled by the police.”

The report was released to coincide with the International AIDS Summit, which kicks off this Sunday and runs through next week. “Eliminating HIV infections is a national priority and ensuring the availability of condoms among those at highest risk is critical,” said Human Rights Watch researcher Megan McLemore in a press release.