Publications & Tools

The data presented in this fact sheet is for the period December 2020 – November 2021 and has been captured among sex workers in Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe as part of the Hands Off programme. Peer educators, rights defenders, outreach workers, paralegals and sex worker focal points are often one of the first contacted by sex workers after they have experienced violence. These first responders document the cases of human rights violations using confidential and secured tools.

This case study focuses on sex workers’ meaningful involvement in the development of rights-based sex worker program in national Funding Requests to the Global Fund in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“This study examines lived experiences of gender-based violence as faced by lesbian, bisexual, and queer (LBQ) women, transgender people, and female sex workers in Burundi, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The study examines how state efforts to exercise control over women’s bodies, combined with patriarchal social systems, result in a wide array of types of violence. As Ugandan feminist lawyer Sylvia Tamale goes on to say in her introduction to the anthology African Sexualities, such systems of control have origins in British colonialism, at which time “A new script, steeped in the Victorian moralistic, antisexual and body-shame edicts, was inscribed on the bodies of African women and with it an elaborate system of control. The instrumentalization of sexuality through the nib of statutory, customary and religious law is closely related to women’s oppression and gender constructions.” Post-independence governments discovered that sexuality could be instrumentalized to suit their needs, too. Over 50 years since colonial power was vanquished on much of the African continent, patriarchal power over women’s bodies and sexualities persists.”

This 2008 report provides extensive research relating to human rights violations of sex workers in Kenya. From it’s Executive Summary: “Currently, Kenyan national law criminalises the involvement of third parties in sex work. Municipal by-laws outlaw ?loitering for the purpose of prostitution,? ?importuning? for the purpose of prostitution and ?indecent exposure,? criminalizing sex work itself for all intents and purposes. Researchers interviewed 70 women sex workers, held six focus groups with sex workers across Kenya, interviewed public officials and convened a focus group with police in order to find out how this framework affects sex workers. This study found that Kenya breaches, in its law and practices relating to the treatment of sex workers, its own constitutional provisions and standards contained in international human rights instruments.” Also published on our website: [RUF Post – Why Sex Work should be Decriminalised] and funded by Open Society Foundation.

Although originally created in order to develop a common language, and history within the JASS community, we quickly realized the dictionary’s potential as a vehicle for the political act of defining our world based on a distinct feminist perspective – one that recognizes how distortions in social, economic, and political power form the basis of inequality and justice.
Building on the 1st edition, this updated version incorporates the feedback of a number of reviewers within the JASS community. It is built on the collective expertise and experience of JASS’ community of feminist popular educators, scholars, and activists from 27 countries in Mesoamerica, Southeast Asia, and Southern Africa.

This Policy Brief was developed in collaboration with Accountability International and funded by Ford Foundation. It provides an overview of issues impacting decriminalisation of sex work across multiple regions in Africa.

The report and toolkit where developed by AIDSfonds as part of the Hands Off! and Briding the Gaps programs. The Hands Off! programme (2015-2019) aimed to contribute to the reduction of violence against sex workers and HIV infection in five countries. Bridging the Gaps (2015-2020) aimed to prevent new HIV infections among sex workers in 11 countries. Sex workers know best! is an operational study on the effects of hosting constructions on sex worker-led programmes. This study was conducted by Aidsfonds in 2018 and includes an executive summary.

The key question of this study is the degree of effectiveness of hosting relationships for sex worker-led organisations to become strong and independent entities that are able to claim their rights to end violence and HIV among sex workers. The study was conducted in Botswana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Myanmar, South Africa, Uganda, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.