The study on ‘Trends and Priorities In Sex Workers Movement Funding In Africa, 2020-2022: Case Study Of The African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA)’ is an important contribution to better understanding on how the sex worker movement in Africa has experienced the funding landscape in recent years.

The African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA) has repeatedly heard from its members that funding to the sex workers movement in Africa has shifted and declined in recent years. This has potentially significant negative consequences to the movement. The Open Society Foundations, historically a strong funder of sex workers organizations in Africa, and in particularly Eastern Africa, has since [2022] stopped its funding for these organizations. It is important for the sex workers movement in Africa to understand better these developments and how they are impacting the movement to be more responsive in addressing them. A convening of sex workers organizations in Nairobi in June 2023 showed that declines in funding were impacting the sex workers movement in other parts of the world as well.

The African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA) with support of the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) commissioned this study on trends in sex workers’ movement funding in Africa, covering the three years period 2020-2022, using ASWA’s membership as a case study.

The study is purposely focused on the 37 countries in Africa where ASWA has members.

ASWA is a sex work movement/network formed in 2009 by empowered sex worker leaders, women rights activists, and NGO’s who support the rights of sex workers and publicly denounce the stigma, discrimination, and criminalisation of sex work. Its vision is an empowered sex work industry where sex workers have equal access to human rights, socialjustice, and health care in a dignified manner.