A meeting of sex workers held at the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne on Sunday heard criminalisation of the profession was fuelling secretive transactions and unsafe sex practices, putting people at risk of HIV and other harm.

Janelle Fawkes, chief executive of the Scarlet Alliance, Australia's peak body for sex workers, said criminalisation meant some workers were too scared to carry condoms for fear police would use them as evidence against them.

"On one hand, you have governments putting money into public health responses and organisations promoting safe sex by providing condoms et cetera. But on the other hand, you have police pulling people up and using condoms as evidence to arrest them,'' she said.

''It happens in many countries, including the US, and it's even happening in Western Australia and South Australia."

Ms Fawkes said some workers, including colleagues from Papua New Guinea, had also reported being raped by police to avoid prosecution.

''The only way to avoid arrest for some sex workers in the region is to exchange sex for not being arrested, so there is a lot of police harrassment, police violence and misuse of power. In that space, a person is not empowered to negotiate safe sex,'' she said.

Selling and buying sex remains illegal in most parts of the world. New South Wales and New Zealand are the only jurisdictions that have fully decriminalised sex work, meaning neither workers nor clients can be prosecuted.

Dozens of sex workers from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and Asia, who attended the meeting, released a consensus statement calling for a range of measures to better protect their health and human rights. They want to stop HIV funding going to faith-based and ''rescue'' organisations opposed to sex work and to be more involved in health promotion campaigns.

The meeting also condemned the detention of sex workers such as Chinese campaigner Ye Haiyan, who was banned from leaving China to attend the conference this week.

''Sex work is work – migrant sex workers choose to work just like other sex workers. We are not victims. We are not trafficked! We oppose the mandatory testing of migrant workers upon arrival, and the denial of visas based on serostatus [HIV status],'' the statement said.

One attendee read a statement from Ms Ye in which she urged her colleagues to keep fighting for decriminalisation.

''It is with great regret that I cannot be at the International AIDS Conference in Melbourne this week. My passport was seized when I applied for my visa to Australia. I did not receive any written notice or legal documentation of this, and I have no idea from what department, by whom, or after how long I will be granted the freedom to travel again,'' the statement said.

Ms Ye, 39, is famous for campaigning for the rights of sex workers in China where prostitution is prevalent but illegal. In 2012, she offered sex for free to impoverished farmers and migrant workers for a day in a rundown brothel. She catalogued her experiences in her highly read blog to highlight the plight of both prostitutes in rural China – some of whom make as little as $2 a client – and low-income men who are too poor to marry or even maintain relationships.

With Philip Wen