The framing of sex workers rights
Sex work is as the exchange of sexual services between consenting adults for some form of remuneration, with
the terms agreed between the parties.
It is important to explicitly refer to the aspect of consent between the parties. Sex work takes different forms and can be more or less formal, frequent or sporadic, take place in diverse contexts, including digital ones, and varies between and within countries and communities. According to a Policy Brief by the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) 2017, the International Labour Organisation (I LO) estimates that sex workers support between five and eight other people with their earnings.
Sex work as an activity between consenting adults is different from trafficking and sexual exploitation and associated human rights violations.
Since the outbreak of COVI D-19 pandemic in March 2020, the urgency for reflective public discourse on sex
work as a means of income and subsistence for some families in Africa requires review of what is deemed as
feasible livelihood options. Reports indicate that the COVI D-19 has resulted in unmatched challenges for sex
workers in Africa. For example, due to restrictions on movements and lockdowns in many countries, SW have lost means of livelihood.
Majority [of SW] have no social protections to provide economic safeguards during periods when people are
unable to work. And since SW are not recognised as workers, they have been unable to access and or benefit
from a range of social protection programs that other workers are entitled to.
ASWA carried out a survey in June 2020 on the impact of responses to COVID-19 on SW, and inability to work
was among the highest worries among sex workers besides the failure to get ARVs and other health services.
Majority of those interviewed said they had never heard about sex work as a labour right or the I LO's decent work agenda. Others said they not about the Committee on International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
(ICESCR), which most countries have ratified. The ICESCR requires States to "recognise the right to work".
It is from this feedback that ASWA is focused in carrying out a campaign and advocacy of sex work as work
focusing on labour rights in four countries in Eastern Africa through the "Sex Work and Labour Rights project". It is believed that the call to decriminalise sex work will be enhanced by engaging sex workers, policy makers and the
public in general in discourses about rights to labour and social protection. The employment challenge is further compounded by the casualisation of jobs, where the proportion of casual workers in wage employment increased gradually from 17.9 per cent in 2000 to 30.1 per cent in 2010. These workers, like those in the informal sector do not enjoy the fundamental rights at work, such as freedom of association and collective bargaining; rightto paid leave; and the rightto social protection.
