The actions of Bangladeshi authorities are arbitrary in a number of respects specified both by the Guiding Principles and by international law. Social progress should not be confused with social cleansing. The elimination of peer-based HIV and STD prevention programs prevents sex workers from effective enjoyment of this right. When one population is denied life-saving information about HIV transmission, the right to health may also be endangered for other populations across Bangladesh. The actions of the Bangladeshi government violate the right to work.
Exploitation is distinguished by the obviation or elimination of consent.
Numerous international standards condemn exploitation for the purposes of sex as well as for other purposes. Provisions against trafficking, exploitation, and coercion, in sex work as well as in other sections of labor and of life, should not stigmatize the persons and groups most vulnerable to abuse. Rather, they should aim at protecting and fulfilling those persons' human rights. Sex workers enjoy the rights to work, to equality before the law, to family, to sustenance, and to a sexual life, in the same degree and under the same conditions as do all other persons. The following is a brief on the situation currently faced by sex workers in Bangladesh.