KOLKATA, India (AFP) - A six-day national meeting of Indian sex workers started in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata to press demands for labour rights and legal recognition as entertainment workers.

Such recognition would amount to legalisation of organised sex work in India, where prostitution inhabits a legal grey area -- it is not banned outright but pimping, trafficking and solicitation of clients are illegal, participants said.

"Nearly 50,000 participants -- both organised and individuals -- from across India are meeting to press their demands," said Smarajit Jana, chief adviser of sex workers body the Committee for Indomitable Women.

The body, the biggest organisation for sex workers in West Bengal, planned the meeting being held in state capital Kolkata's red-light Sonagachi district.

"We believe the policy makers are going to accept sex workers as entertainment workers, today or tomorrow," said Jana, a doctor, addressing a rally in a public park. Sex workers pumped their fists in the air as he spoke, shouting slogans.

Such recognition would reduce stigma and afford sex workers greater rights, he said.

"Sex workers will share their views with film makers, actors, writers, rights activists and health officials on their demands and hold a rally to create public awareness," said the doctor.

Sex workers in Sonagachi are among the country's most politically active and condoms have been distributed free there, as part of a project funded by the the World Health Organisation, since 1992.

The area, where about 8,000 sex workers live, also launched a state-backed project in December to train prostitutes to use female condoms. The city is estimated to have a total of about 20,000 sex workers.

The country coordinator for the United Nations AIDS body, UNAIDS, said Sonagachi sex workers were playing a key role by actively promoting condom use, and some of the programmes there would be adapted to other red-light areas.

"More than five million people in India are now living with AIDS and it's a serious problem," said Denis Broun in his address to the meeting.

India, with a population of 1.1 billion, has the largest number of HIV-AIDS cases in the world, with 5.7 million cases, the Geneva-based agency says.

There are about 10 million sex workers in India, according to the Committee for Indomitable Women.

Original link: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/070225/health/health_india_aids