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This paper examines the political and social management of bodies labeled as diseased and engaged in sex work, focusing on a 2012 case.

February 28, 2026Open Access

Construction and deconstruction of the truth regime about expropriated bodies of seropositivity/sexwork/feminine subjectivity or “What people do to people”

Key Points

This paper examines the political and social management of bodies labeled as diseased and engaged in sex work, focusing on a 2012 case.
Analysis of the 2012 legal case in Greece involving HIV-positive female sexworkers.
Examination of surveillance and social control mechanisms used against these women.
Discussion of collective actions that challenged the dominant narratives around expropriated bodies.
Review of relevant documents from 2012 to 2025, including press articles and reports.
The women in the case were legally found innocent, challenging the smear campaign against them.
The analysis reveals how the state used public health as a justification for surveillance and social control.
Collective action emerged to oppose the mistreatment and to call for a re-examination of human rights in this context.

Abstract

The public humiliation of “HIV-positive female sexworkers” in Greece in 2012 returned to the spotlight following a decision by the European Court of Human Rights. As a result, the thirty-two women who had been defamed were found innocent, thereby defining the (legal) outcome of the case. This paper presents the 2012 case study as a postmodern form of political-social management of a body that is (allegedly) diseased (HIVpositive) and engaged in sex (sexuality/sexwork). It is analysed and interpreted through the mechanisms of surveillance and social/cultural control. Medicine was integrated into government policy. Also, how the smear campaign spread across Greece and was substantiated by official state agencies under the guise of defending public health, thereby structuring an (anti-human) regime of truth/discourse/knowledge/power. It is noted that the accused women experienced what happened while they were placed in dangerous conditions for their health and lives. At the same time, a collective action was formed, based on direct and practical solidarity, that, to the extent possible, deconstructed the dominant regime of expropriated bodies, which joined the new “witch hunt”. Based on the appeal of this collective action, the new issue raised in this contribution concerns how the theory of human rights dialogues with the demand for its practical application in today’s context, and how a new reading of history and the historical continuation of the new “witch hunt” include points of resistance capable of deconstructing discourses and practices about dispossessed bodies. Aiming for a new reading of the human and the history of expropriation, the sociology of the body has been chosen as the main theoretical tool, which, through the analysis of (biomedical and biopolitical) discourse, is articulated with concepts from poststructuralist (sociological) theory and social anthropology. The material for the collection/selection/exposition of factual data is based on documents retrieved from the Internet (2012–2025) and includes a representative part of the printed Press, the most frequently viewed reports/articles of the electr

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Katerina Anastasios Anastasiou

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Construction and deconstruction of the truth regime about expropriated bodies of seropositivity/sexwork/feminine subjectivity or “What people do to people”

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