SWEAT: African Sex Worker Conference

Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) is a NGO that works with sex workers around health and human rights. SWEAT is hosting the African Sexworker Conference from 3-5 February 2009 in Johannesburg.

The conference will bring together sex workers, sex worker organisations, advocates, and supporters from across Eastern, Western and Southern Africa to share their knowledge and expertise on specific sex worker issues that cut across Africa’s countries and regions.

These include but are not limited to

• Definitions and understandings of sex work
• Stigma and discrimination Sex workers’ human rights
• Criminalisation and structural violence
• Police brutality and arbitrary arrest
• Abuse, violence, and exploitation within the sex industry
• Health risks, access to health care services and facilities, and sexual and reproductive health rights
• Diversity, representation, and collectivisation

The conference takes a rights-based approach to sex work issues and advocates that all sex workers are human rights defenders. Therefore, sex workers will lead the conference, alliance, and movement, so that sex workers are in charge of their own civil, economic, social, cultural, and political development and progress. The conference represents a unique opportunity for active, meaningful, and unified participation from sex workers of different backgrounds.

The conference will explore the ways in which sex workers can organise themselves: why it is important to unite and collectivise; how to find safe spaces for sex workers to assemble; and how to manage national, regional, and global sex worker-led movements.

This conference represents an immense opportunity to make a positive change in people’s lives, not only for sex workers, but also for their children and other dependents. It can improve the well-being of communities and empower other marginalised groups. The conference is a way of legitimising democracy, diversity, and development. It can demonstrate that violating a sex worker’s human rights is only one step away from violating anyone and everyone’s human rights.

Conference organisers

• Sisonke – South African sex worker movement
• Sex workers from Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe
• Sex worker organisations and Organisations with sex worker programmes and projects
• Botswana Network on Ethics, Law, and HIV/AIDS – BONELA (Botswana)
• Centre for the Development of People – CEDEP (Malawi)
• Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe – GALZ (Zimbabwe)
• International Centre for Reproductive Health – ICRHK (Kenya)
• People Opposing Women’s Abuse – POWA (South Africa)
• Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce – SWEAT (South Africa)
• Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit – RHRU (South Africa)
• The Rainbow Project – TRP (Namibia)
• Uganda Coalition for Crisis Prevention – UCCP (Uganda)
• Women’s Organisation Networking for Human Rights Advocacy WONETHA (Uganda)

Dates: 3-5 February 2009

Venue: Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit, Hugh Solomon Building,
Cnr Esselen and Klein streets, Hillbrow, Johannesburg

Contact Person: valda.lucas@sweat.org.za

RSVP: mapaseka.vryman@sweat.org.za

For more information on SWEAT, click here.