Resources

The Kenya Sex Worker Alliance (KESWA) and Bar Hostess Empowerment and Support Programme, with support from NSWP and CREA, submitted this shadow report to the 68th CEDAW Session, which took place October-November 2017. Titled “Aren’t We Also Women,” the report incorporates quotes from sex workers and is based on desk research and extensive interviews with KESWA member organisations.

The Nigeria Sex Workers Association- Precious Jewels (NSWA) submitted this shadow report to the 67^th CEDAW Session, which took place in July 2017. The report focuses on the impact of stigma, penalisation and discrimination on female sex workers' ability to access HIV prevention and health services, and their vulnerability to HIV and violence at the hands of police. The report also provides background information about NSWA and economic, health, and population context in Nigeria.

The Kenyan Network of Sex Workers, including KESWA and the Bar Hostess Empowerment & Support Programme, has submitted this document to the CEDAW Working Group which will review Kenya in November 2017.

Intervention by Martine Ago, Ivory Coast:
The United Nations General Assembly
High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS

United Nations Headquarters
New York, USA, June 1, 2006

Your Excellency, the president of the United Nations General Assembly; Your Excellence, the Secretary General of the United Nations; and honored invitees, ladies and gentlemen:

I am Martine Ago, representative of sex professionals, from the Ivory Coast, a country that knows firsthand a military-political crisis with its crushing poverty, violence and degradation of the health system.

Women in many cultures have used lemon or lime juice for contraception and vaginal hygiene for centuries; however, despite rumours that say otherwise, these juices are not only ineffective as a microbicide to prevent transmission of HIV, but can actually cause HIV transmission more easily because of the damage that they do to vaginal tissues.