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Sex Worker Rights

SALC’s Sex Worker Rights programme has the following objectives:

  • To assert accountability for police abuse of sex workers.
  • To assert sex workers’ rights to form an association and to engage in protests.
  • To challenge incorrect interpretations of offences, including the offence of living on the earnings of prostitution.
  • To challenge offences used to arbitrarily target sex workers and other marginalised groups.

Current cases:

Completed cases:

Criminal JusticeOngoing casesSex Worker RightsSexual and Reproductive Health Rights

Nigeria: Challenge to arbitrary arrest of women during sweeping exercises

Factual Background The applicants were among 71 women who were arrested at various public spaces in Abuja between 17 and 26 April 2019. The arrests were carried out by the FCTA Joint Task Team comprising the Nigerian Army, Nigeria Securities and Civil Defence Corp, Nigeria Police Force, Social Development Secretariat,…
Anneke Meerkotter
21 May 2019
Articles and OpinionsFreedom of Expression, Assembly and AssociationHealth RightsNewsSADCSex Worker RightsSOGIE Rights

Official registration of key populations organizations opens doors for funding and sustainable HIV responses

Local community groups working with populations vulnerable to HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa are making inroads into obtaining official recognition by their governments, which is expanding opportunities for increased funding and ensuring a more substantial, and needed, role in national HIV responses in the region. Globally, new HIV infections are on…
Staff Writer
30 Nov 2018
Health RightsMalawiNewsSex Worker Rights

NEWS RELEASE: HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS CELEBRATE MALAWI’S ADOPTION OF AMENDED HIV LAW THAT REMOVES RIGHTS-INFRINGING PROVISIONS

Lilongwe - On Tuesday, 28 November, Malawi Members of Parliament voted to reject coercive and criminalising provisions that threatened human rights in a long-deliberated HIV (Prevention and Management) Bill. Activists and people living with and affected by HIV celebrated outside Parliament after having protested for months against rights-infringing provisions in…
Staff Writer
29 Nov 2017
Health RightsMozambiqueNewsSex Worker Rights

CIVIL SOCIETY STATEMENT ON THE CRIMINALISATION OF HIV AT THE 61ST ORIDINARY SESSION OF THE AFRICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN AND PEOPLE’S RIGHTS

BANJUL, The Gambia—Civil society organisations working on HIV and human rights, delivered a statement at the 61st Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights condemning the disturbing trend of the enactment of repressive HIV specific laws which often contain provisions that criminalise HIV, transmission, non-disclosure and…
Staff Writer
6 Nov 2017