Resources from Funders and Allied Organisations Supporting Sex Workers’ RightsWe have organised the growing community of organisations supporting sex worker rights and provided brief introductions to strengthen the support available to the sex worker rights movement.
We have categorised them (funders, sex worker-led networks, and allied organisation) as well as created tags for key topics that intersect with our work.
African Sex Worker Alliance (ASWA) is a sex worker-led African regional network that was created in 2009 and is based in Nairobi, Kenya. ASWA has more than 70 sex worker-led organisations as members in 33 African countries. The network amplifies the voices of their sex worker members and advocates for the health and human rights of the diverse community of sex workers working and living in Africa.
The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) is “a grantmaking foundation that supports local, national and regional women’s organisations working towards the empowerment of African women and the promotion and realisation of their rights .By specialising in grant-making and focused, tailored movement-building programmes, we work to strengthen and support the work of African women’s organisations.By amplifying and celebrating African women’s voices and achievements, AWDF supports efforts that combat harmful stereotypes, and promote African women as active agents of change.” Information about their grantmaking and other work is available on their website.
Comic Relief is a charity based in the UK “with a vision of a just world, free from poverty… We aim to entertain, engage and accelerate change. We will do this by being a creative agency for social change.” Comic Relief’s Power Up strategy prioritises women and girls having the power to identify their needs, organise around solutions and strategies, and collectively make decisions on how to move forward.
The craigslist Charitable Fund (CCF) “provides millions of dollars each year in one-time and recurring grants to hundreds of partner organizations addressing four broad areas of interest.” The organization is known for donating heavily to nonprofit journalism outlets, gun control groups, and environmentalist groups.
The Digital Defenders Partnership offers support to human rights defenders under digital threat, and works to strengthen local rapid response networks. From 2012 to 2019, DDP received its funding from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom; along with the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and the United States Department of State. DDP operates in a manner that is independent from its donors and is managed by the Humanist Institute for Development Co-operation (Hivos), a non-profit organisation headquartered in the Netherlands that provides funding and implements programmes to innovate for social change worldwide.
“FIDA-Kenya is a premier women’s rights organization in Kenya that has offered free legal aid to over 3,000,000 women over the course of 35 years.
We are committed to creating a society that respects and upholds women’s rights with a mission to promote women’s individual and collective power to claim their rights in all spheres of life. FIDA-Kenya is a membership organization with over 1,400 women advocates and lawyers in Kenya.
We are an accredited institution and has observer status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR). The submission of periodic shadow reports to the international and human rights agencies continues to provide space for advocacy at a higher level. The adoption of the Resolution on Women’s Rights to Land and Productive Resources by the ACHPR, Litigation of Women Land Rights before the ACHPR are critical achievements made by regional advocacy efforts.”
Foundation for a Just Society (FJS) “advances the rights of women, girls, and LGBTQI people and promotes gender and racial justice by ensuring those most affected by injustice have the resources they need to cultivate the leadership and solutions that transform our world.” Learn more about what they fund on their website.
The Global Fund is a partnership designed to accelerate the end of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria as epidemics. As an international organization, the Global Fund mobilizes and invests more than US$4 billion a year to support programs run by local experts in more than 100 countries. In partnership with governments, civil society, technical agencies, the private sector and people affected by the diseases
Hacking//Hustling is a collective of sex workers, survivors, and accomplices working at the intersection of tech and social justice to interrupt violence facilitated by technology.
Hivos is a humanist organization that strives for a free, fair and sustainable world. Hivos seeks new and creative solutions to persistent global problems; solutions created by people taking their lives into their own hands. Hivos has a global office in the Hague, The Netherlands and provides support to civil society organisations working in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.
The Numun Fund is “a feminist technology response during COVID-19. It aims to support feminist groups, organizations and networks led by women, non-binary and trans people who use technology to advance feminist organizing and gender-just outcomes.” Feminist groups, organizations and networks led by women, non-binary and trans people are eligible to apply to Numun Fund.
“The Open Technology Fund (OTF) is an independent non-profit organization committed to advancing global Internet freedom. OTF supports projects focused on counteracting repressive censorship and surveillance, enabling citizens worldwide to exercise their fundamental human rights online. Through the research, development, implementation, and sustainability of technologies that facilitate the free flow of information, increase at-risk users’ digital security, and enable free expression, the OTF community is working to shape the Internet as a platform that fosters unimpeded connection and collaboration – facilitating positive social progress and reinforcing core democratic values.
Open Technology Fund has four different funds including Internet Freedom Fund and Rapid Response Fund.”
The Other Foundation is an African trust dedicated to advancing human rights in Southern Africa, with a particular focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. Their primary purpose is to expand resources available to defend and advance the rights and well-being of LGBTI people in the Southern African region. They do this by working both as a grant-maker and a fundraiser.
“UHAI – EASHRI are philanthropic activists in a region where our identities as LGBTIQ+ people and as sex workers are criminalised through punitive laws, where governments actively shut down spaces for movement organising to end discrimination in access to services and healthcare, where societal and public opinion upholds exclusion from families, exclusion from faith communities and denial of basic rights such as access to dignified livelihoods, access to fair hearing and justice by law enforcement.”
Urgent Action Fund-Africa (UAF-Africa) is part of the Urgent Action Fund global consortium. They work to support African Womn’s Human Rights Defenders, their organisations, collectives and movements to take actions that sustain their work and themselves before, during and after urgent situations. They provide rapid response grants.
