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The FCRJ podcast discusses feminism and racial justice. Grace Nyeres, a sex worker advocate and human rights defender, talks about her work with the African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA). ASWA runs the Sex Worker Academy Africa, which trains sex worker leaders in leadership, organizational capacity building, health issues, human rights, and community-led research. Grace emphasizes the importance of intersectionality in feminist movements and the need for inclusive spaces that challenge harmful narratives around sex work. She also discusses how ASWA addresses the intersections of race, gender, and class within the sex worker community and amplifies marginalized voices. Welcome to the FCRJ podcast, where we discuss topical issues at the intersection of feminism and racial justice, as well as engage partners and comrades on projects we're carrying out together. This is the third in a series of podcasts developed by the Feminist Centre for Racial Justice, which is hosted at the University of London. For more information about the Feminist Centre, please go to our website, www.thefeministcentre.org. This podcast series introduces three of the activists participating in FCRJ's Feminist Movement-Building School. Run over five days, these immersive, movement-focused schools combine strategic approaches emerging from social justice movements and draw on transnational research collaboration outcomes. My name is Nadia Ashtray, I'm a guest podcast producer for FCRJ, and today I have the privilege of introducing you to sex workers advocate and human rights defender Grace Nyeres. So welcome, Nyeres. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me, Nadia. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are in your own words, and the work that you do? Yes, my name's Grace Nyeres. I work for African Sex Workers Alliance as a project coordinator, where I coordinate the Sex Worker Academy Africa. It is called African Leadership Sex Worker Academy, where we bring different sex workers leaders from different countries, and we take them through a curriculum that we have, which is also developed by sex workers. So the curriculum has a module of leadership. We have organizational capacity building. We also have issues of race as a child. We talk about health issues. We also have... We use... We teach them also through the International Human Rights Framework in the curriculum, and also how to do community-led research. So we take them through research and documentation in the ethics. So to tell you that is what I do in ASWA, and also now in African Sex Workers Alliance before we work towards making sure that rights of sex workers are observed, and we look at this through health justice, social justice, and making sure that their human rights are respected. And we also work towards making sure that sex workers discriminate against or to consent in any way. Thank you so much. So it sounds like you're working transnationally to build the capacities of sex workers and to lead the movement and to kind of get towards liberation and decriminalization. Exactly. Can we discuss a little bit about the importance of intersectionality in feminist movements? Because I know when you introduced yourself first at this workshop, you talked about the fact that these movements can often be exclusionary for sex workers. And so I want to hear a little bit about the importance of intersectionality, especially in challenging legal and social norms around belonging and citizenship and identity, which are the key themes that we've been discussing. Yeah. So intersectionality is very important, and it is my profession. So we must look at it in the areas of race, gender, and identity. So when you look at it in the angle of belonging, citizenship, and identity, it really helps us in making sure that the issues of sex workers are brought in in the discussion. So intersectionality helps us in understanding the complex identities that come up with belonging, citizenship, and identity. And this helps us in navigating the social structures and the norms that have been created. So it helps us also look at it and also in understanding it and making sure that these structures and these norms do not infringe us that much. So when we put the intersectionality perspective in an angle, it makes us be able to navigate our issues well in making sure that they are tackled well. Intersectionality also helps us to promote equity. So when we look at it from the sex worker angle, we have different identities of sex workers. And now when we bring them on board and making sure that all their issues are brought in and discussed, so we bring the angle of intersectionality in making sure that all sex workers, which is sex workers with disability, migrant sex workers, LGBTQ sex workers, sex workers from the rural, sex workers, everywhere they are, we make sure that we bring the equity aspect of it in making sure that their issues are all levelized and addressed. Intersectionality also will help us in challenging the discriminatory norms. Currently in Africa, we have different countries talking about sex work in different ways. We have countries that have legalized sex work. We have countries that have criminalized sex work. We have countries that criminalize the third party. We have countries that criminalize those who live with prostitutes. So when we look at all these issues, we need to look at it in a very intersectional way so that we can see how do we work towards this. The gun laws that are infringing the sex workers' rights and are dressing them in, because we work in a regional office, so making sure that all these laws, we discuss them and make sure that we look at it in an angle that all sex workers with different laws, their issues are addressed. So what I'm hearing is that it's useful to understand, let me start again. So what I'm hearing is that intersectionality is a useful framework to understand the ways in which white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy create ideas around who is a good citizen, who belongs, and who doesn't. And that kind of is a way to continue to perpetuate inequalities that mean that sex workers are criminalized, but also stigmatized when they face violence. And so this framework has been useful. How do you think feminist spaces can be more inclusive of sex workers, and why do you think it's essential that these spaces actively challenge dominant and often really harmful narratives around sex work? Feminist spaces should be inclusive of sex workers. These spaces should be spaces that accept to address stigma and discrimination of sex workers. I know we've been in spaces that accept sex workers, and we've been in spaces that discriminate sex workers. So for us to work towards feminist values and feminist principles, we must work towards addressing the stigma and discrimination that comes with sex workers. Sex workers are criminalized, marginalized, and also discriminated. So working in other spaces becomes hard because of the stigma associated with it. We have been categorized as bad women, so we can't fit in the good women's spaces. So when feminists come together and try to address the stigma and discrimination, the narratives that come with stigma and discrimination, and we look at narratives that can counteract that, it will be really helpful for the sex workers movement, and we will grow further. So also, another thing that feminist spaces can embrace is helping and challenging the harmful narratives. Like I said, there have been harmful narratives. Sex workers are mostly associated with hate speech and abuse. Now M-FOX, Manti-FOX, that was known as Manti-FOX, now M-FOX has come. We have documents that have indicated that it's being spread by sex workers. When COVID came, we were labeled, we are spreading COVID. So how do feminists help us in challenging these harmful narratives that are going around? Because sex workers are women. A good number of them are women. 90% of sex workers are women. So how do you work towards making sure all women, their body autonomy are addressed, anything, any choice they make are addressed? So helping us in challenging these narratives will really make the sex workers movement and feminist spaces work towards... One... Okay. Start again. So working towards challenging these harmful narratives is going to help the feminist and also sex workers movement to move forward and work towards the goal that feminist movements are looking towards. So we can also... Feminists also can help us in building solidarity and alliances. So we've known that working with transnationals, we must create connections, we must create networks, we must create movements. So how can feminist spaces, feminists, embrace sex workers so that we can build a solidarity alliance? Which will help us in counteracting the harmful narratives that we've talked about, even the marginalization, even the stigma. And it will help us also in addressing issues of the qualities and laws that feminizes sex work. So that's how feminist spaces can help us. I think something you said there that's really kind of pertinent and sticks out to me is that it's the very same narratives and laws that act upon sex workers' bodies and criminalize sex workers' bodies and devalue sex workers' bodies that are acting on other women's bodies who aren't sex workers. And if women who aren't sex workers make their spaces exclusionary and their movements exclusionary, they're actually acting in a way that is not going to be helpful for them. And so what you're saying is if we understand the struggle of one, if we understand that actually all of this violence is oppressing us just in different ways and with different expressions, we will stop attacking the symptoms, we'll start thinking about how to strategically work against the root cause and work to fix the root cause. And so it's not only that women's movements and women's spaces should help sex workers, it works both ways because sex workers' movements will help women's movements. And it's only that when those things come together that... Yes, yes. Exactly. How does your work address the intersections of race and gender and class within the sex worker community at a local level, because I know you work with local organizations, at a national level, but also transnationally as AFWA? And what strategies have been effective in ensuring that marginalized voices are heard and amplified? So one thing we do mostly, we have organizations. We are a member-specific organization. We have national networks and we have local organizations in countries. So what we usually do locally, we do community outreach support. So we support these organizations that are grassroots, we give them small grants so that they can have ownership of how to address their issues. So we don't involve the national networks by then, so first we want these small organizations on the grassroots level to get to address the issues that they are going through in the community. So we give them small grants to decide what would be best for them, for which they can consult amongst themselves and come up with their activities that they would want to do or issues that they would want to address amongst themselves. So that is also one thing that we do. We also, when we do policy advocacy, we make sure that the sex workers are republished as representatives in these cases. So when we are coming up with the policy, views of sex workers must be brought to us and we write them down. If not, we put up our draft policy. So when we are doing any policy advocacy, we make sure that we put the grassroots for them to be simplified in the language that they can understand so that when they want to address any issue, they understand that policy well on how it is affecting them or how it is helping them. So making them included in policy advocacy is also something that we do. We also do coalition building. Sometimes we involve these local organizations and we have a coalition with them and we do activities. An example is on 17th of December, we usually do international day to end violence against sex workers. So we usually look at these local organizations and support them. And when we are doing the activities, we make sure we go to support them. So our faith as Afro is there and also those small local organizations and sex workers in the local are also there. So also something that we've also done both the grassroots and nationally, we did research in data collection on social protection. Sex workers were sexed during COVID and sex workers were people, social protections were there mostly during COVID and sex workers were not taken in consideration when these things and help were being given out. So we were doing community data collection on response to social protection where we involve organization, local organization. So we came for the training. They were trained on how to do data collection. We give them small grants. They went back to their countries and they collected data and analyzed the data. So the data that they have now, they are doing that focuses in areas that they found that have gaps in the research that we did. And nationally, we do leadership development. As I began, I told you we run a sex worker academy in Africa. So this is where we usually give them capacity and training. And also, as I said, they did research. Here is where also they were trained on how to collect data. So this training, when they go back, we usually give them small grants to go and localize what they have learned in their countries and in their small organizations. So we usually resource mobilize. And then after resource mobilizing, we send them some small money to make sure that they conceptualize what they learned into their own issues that they are going through in their countries. So they do that. And then they send reports. Sometimes we get to see that there are a lot of gaps and we continue to resource mobilize for different donors. Or we refer them to some partners. We sometimes tell them to work with the government a bit. Most of the government don't align to unless it is future issues that deal with health. If it is not issues that deal with health, like the justice system, most of the government don't align with. So if it is health issues, we make sure that we align with the government on how we can be helped. We also make sure that we have representation. When we have gatherings, we have meetings, we make sure that sex workers are there. We send them to meetings. Currently we have a global health meeting. So we make sure that we have sex workers who are going there. You heard of the UN rapporteur who wrote a statement about sex workers. He mobilized sex workers who went and did protests in Geneva a month ago. So with that we make sure that we have representation and also their voices are heard in that. We also are working towards challenging stigma and stereotypes mostly on issues of decree. We were really banking on South Africa doing their decree process because we were looking at it as a case study. So since it flopped and the government also has changed, which means they are beginning afresh, starting afresh. So we started looking at how do we unpack the decree. Because when we look at the system of going into the parliamentary way or the litigation way, it takes years and it needs resources. And we have also challenges in resources. So how do we work towards decree? Even decriminalizing sex work in the hospital alone so that the gatekeepers, where sex workers work, decriminalize it first. Then the officers, we talk to them, how do they help the sex workers to decriminalize. So that is also something that we do with them nationally. Globally, we work with, we partner with regional organizations like we have, for example, we have Africa organization. We have EASWA, which is European Sex Workers. We also have ASEAN, ASEAN Pacific. So we created a consortium where we work in issues of mobilizing and making sure we make these resources. And also, that is where we discuss issues that are coming up. So before we meet globally, we usually meet with our members and get to see which issues that we're having. Like currently, we're working towards anti-gender and anti-race, which is a very big problem in Africa here. So we usually have a meeting and then these issues are discussed. And then now, when we have this global platform, this is where now we take up these issues and try to lobby to get support, to so many people who can support us on the issues that we have. We do get some who, when we are having even press statements, they come and stand with us. That is also something that we do nationally. We mobilize them that we'll be having this press statement. They appear and come in the process. That is also what we do nationally. Thank you. So what I'm hearing is that you really value capacity building at a local and grassroots level, ensuring that your work at a national and transnational level is driven by local sex work and local sex work organizations. I'm hearing that you build solidarity across the continent and you're also trying to draw lessons from different advocacy and lobbying strategies. And what I'm hearing is that you also prioritize building solidarity because you understand that your movement is more powerful across borders and that there's a lot of learning that can be shared. Thank you. What principles of feminist leadership and movement building guide your work at AFWA? And how do you ensure that these principles are implemented across the various contexts in which you operate locally, nationally and regionally at an Africa level? We've talked about it already. We make sure that intersectionality is key in our work. This will help us in understanding different forms of discrimination. So when we understand it, it helps us in developing programs and also designing policies that are going to address these diverse needs of sex workers. So when we look at intersectionality, we make sure that, as I talked about community outreaches, so we make sure that the sex workers come and come up with an outreach that they themselves have really designed and they know very well that it's going to cater for their needs. So intersectionality is very key because also we work with different diverse types of sex workers who go through different challenges of which I, as a sex worker, might not know. So having them on board and getting to listen to them, and they are experts in their own way. They know their problems. At the same time, they're the ones who can tell you how to address that problem. So having them on board and making sure that you listen to them is usually very, very key. Another that we work towards is empowerment. Sex workers are in control of their own lives and decisions and living their own life. As I said, sex workers are experts. They know what is the problem. They know how to go about this problem. They have experience. They have seen how they came up from those violent cases. So when we look at them, we make sure that, as I said about the academy speaker, we empower them. Any information that we get, we share knowledge with them and we give them training. Also, the opportunities that I see. We also do technical assistance to them, mentorship. So we run a mentorship program where we have young sex workers who we take to leadership programs. And also, these are the organizations, these are the sex workers. Also, we do technical support. Anything they might want, they might need any support. They just alert us and we create how we can take them to that support. So empowerment is also something that we do. We also work on, we look at anti-oppression and anti-discrimination. Working to dismantle oppressive structures. The only thing we are looking at now is the decree. You know, probably when the decree, if the decree works, I can't say they will stop violence but there will be a reduction of violence. I can't say that there will be no murder but there will be a reduction of murder. So we are looking at how do we work towards making sure that sex work is fully decriminalized for 2.3 million adults. And also we have, there was this issue of anti-gender, anti-right movement that was including us in this crisis. We have sex workers who have been murdered in Tanzania. We have a sex worker who was gang raped in Tanzania. And when the law enforcers came to the media and they said the woman was raped because she was a sex worker. So it means she deserves to be raped because she was a sex worker. So we need anti-oppression and anti-stigma to make sure that the sex workers are safe. If they go out for work, they don't worry about the children they are carrying. They don't fear that I might not go back home. They don't fear that I might be arrested and I'm on ARBs and I'm not arraigned in court and I will stay for five days without taking my medication. So these are the things, symbols and values that make sure that we will plan our work and look at. Thank you. I think what you said to me about just now about how if there are no protections for people, if there are no protections for sex workers against things like being murdered then it means that they deserve it. I think that that's something that's deeply problematic but also kind of speaks to again what we were speaking about, about who belongs, who deserves protection, who deserves to be a citizen who is respected and who has rights. And the narratives that are harming all of us are the same narratives that are saying that these people don't deserve to be protected as citizens. I think something else you mentioned about knowledge and our understanding that sex workers know what they want. I think that, I'm going to start again. What you said about the fact that sex workers know what they want is important. You have the data, you have the knowledge, it's embodied, it's passed on, it's collective and I think that what you're saying here is powerful because you're saying the resources already exist, the knowledge already exists. It's about whether or not it's taken seriously and centred in movement. And exactly, and I think that that's what you're speaking to here which is really important. Can you also speak to some of the challenges that you've encountered in building and sustaining transnational feminist movements, particularly in the context of sex work? The challenge that we have is criminalisation is one of the challenges that we are experiencing. Stigma by who? Stigma by the state? Stigma by feminist movements? The criminalisation of stigma is limited from the government to the society, to the community, to the families that we come from, even to the society at large. So sex work is criminalised and it is seen as a taboo. So this is one of the challenges that probably when you go into these services, you don't think of profession. You just go, even if you're violated, when probably you're writing a statement and the officer gets to hear that you're a racist or not because when you're writing your statement you must include everything, where you were, what you were doing at that time, why you were there. So they get to know you're a sex worker and that's where your information collection stops. So this makes a lot of them not report the cases that they go through. And this has brought about the issue of sex work as normalising violence to themselves. So if it happens, they don't report because they say, if I report I'm also criminalised, why should I report? So they go through this trauma of violence, different types of violence, but they don't report. So they say, I will not be listened to, nothing will happen, so why should I report? So they don't report. And that is where we came up with the hashtag that violence is not part of mental description. So most of the time when you tweet, when you do activities, you make sure that you put that violence is not part of mental description. So it speaks to them so that they can know if they experience any kind of violence, they need to speak up. Speak up about it and now we see how. Because when you speak, now when you go in now, it can go viral and then people get to understand this is a violence and it happens and now people start to engage with how we address it. We also have a challenge of sexual and legal differences, like I said, countries having different addressing, speaking about sex work in different ways in their laws. Some are more clearly criminalised, some are legalised, some do not speak directly about sex workers. So when you want to address the issue of sex work, when you want to bring it up, there's no way you can bring it up because it's not in the law. So how do you want us to address it if it's not in the law? And also we have one country in Africa that sex work is legalised but the sex workers are legalised on paper. But what happens if it's criminalised? So how do we address this issue of it is legalised on paper but the sex workers are still criminalised? We have a challenge of power dynamics. We have different areas and different regions. We have regions where sex workers are more, let me say, are more informed and more occupying spaces more and we have areas that they're not informed or spaces, they don't have that what do I say, occupying spaces to them is not that much. So this also brings about issues that when you bring them together, working out becomes a problem. Addressing these issues becomes a problem and power play now comes in. So it's also a challenge that also we should look within the sex workers movement itself. And all of these challenges that you've described, how are they reflected in your movement? Because the challenges you describe are generally outside challenges, so challenges around being a sex worker. How does that show up in the movement? How is that reflected in the movement of AFA? I think that's a good question. So what you've described is the challenges that sex workers face around doing their work and being protected and all of those things. How do those challenges reflect in the movement? And what are the challenges that you've had to build a strong movement to kind of lobby for your goals and things like that? Do you see what I mean? We've asked about the anti-gender and anti-right movement. I remember when Uganda AHA bill was passed, Kenya brought the family protection bill and then Ghana also brought up the bill. So I've actually decided to tweet and advocate towards these laws that were oppressing the community. So I thought it was an attack from a member of parliament in Kenya in the offices that we've seen in Kenya. So we had to go low. We had to close our website because our information was on the website. Our photos were on the website. We had also indicated our location. So we had to close down our website. We had to work from home. We had that fear that probably our family members might get hurt because now probably someone might not come to you but might go to your family members. We went on hiding for like a month. So this was also a challenge that came in within the movement and it made us now go low in our advocacy and in our vitality. We took a low profile for quite some time. So this affected the community and also us because as a team we were on fear. And also these other countries that we work in also are also on fear because their governments were also adapting this. They would hear their countries talking about that we'll adapt what happened in Uganda. So they're also fearing, calling us for support and help as ourselves also we've gone under. We are not working. So that was a big challenge which affected the movement. And we could not just work. So it is something up to now really we are back but we are not that soon. When we are teaching or when we are doing advocacy there are some things that we don't do. We also don't have locations where we are and we are doing an activity. So this also is affecting our movement. It has really slowed down what we have done. So we're working on our safety and security both to the community and also to the organisations. And that's a really important infrastructure when it comes to movements, ensuring that you have strategies for safety and security to protect not only the organisation but the individuals involved in organising. And I guess if you're working on a transnational level and you're following policy development across the region and kind of advocating across the region you're putting or you're inadvertently putting the target on your back for this kind of what seemingly is a transnational anti-gender movement. We also have this challenge of sustaining stakeholders. It's very challenging and we don't know. We've mapped our allies and our opposers and they're kind of fluid. So when this issue of anti-gender rights happened some of our allies moved to be our opposers. And also these stakeholders also they change their framework, they change how they work. Hopefully sustaining them becomes really discussed. And also when our values also don't align with their values it really becomes a challenge in sustaining them. It's really affecting the movement. Because sometimes when they leave also they leave this information that you have. We don't know whom they are sharing it with. So it's difficult. And what stakeholders are you referring to? Who are your stakeholders? Do you mean the sex workers you work with, the organisations you're working with? Who are changing their stance on sex work and that's very challenging. So I guess what you're saying is your movement needs to be agile in response and you need to put in mechanisms to ensure that you're not enabling infiltrators and things like that. So we've discussed the challenges but what do you think makes transnational movements so powerful in challenging some of the technologies of violence that we've named during this week at the Feminist Movement Schools such as capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy? So transnationally I think liberating international democracy is really key and this helps us also having that support in making us understandable. Sorry. Can I just repeat the question because I said it wrong? Is that okay? Sorry. Thank you so much. So we've discussed some of the challenges that you've encountered and that you continue to encounter in terms of building and sustaining a transnational framework but what do you think makes transnational movements so powerful in challenging some of the technologies of violence that we've discussed this week at the Movement Law School? What makes transnational movements so powerful in challenging the technologies of violence is the one leveraging the international human rights framework. So this helps in analysing it, understanding it and also helps in addressing issues of violations in the international human rights framework and doing the submissions. An example is when we write CETO and also having a transnational movement where sexual assault cases are embraced and our voices are allowed to say the violations that we're going through and then being put up in that report in this sub-metric. This is something that really can help us in tackling the technology of violence. And also creating global solidarity and coalition policy. And this is when we are transnational and globally we'll be able to get information because there will be a lot of sharing information. We'll also be able to get resources from these coalitions and also knowledge sharing of knowledge. When we are there and people share knowledge we get to learn the new strategies that have come. Strategies that we try in working with. And then to us you get how early they help you with the information on how that strategy can work. So having a global coalition is really, really important and can help us in fighting the technology of violence. Thank you. And to kind of end, what feminist movement building principles or methodologies have kind of struck you during this week and what do you think you'll be taking home with you? Intersectionality really took me when we were discussing about that. This will help us in recognising and understanding it and helping us address all forms of oppression that are related to gender, white supremacy, and also classism. So intersectionality really took me from the feminist schools that have been. So also something that really took me is having the solidarity and collective action. When we talked about movement we got to realise movement is not an individual. So how do we work towards our movement to have that solidarity and collective action? Making sure that everyone's voices are heard. We built in our solidarity and action coalition having feminist principles and feminist values in it. And I'm working towards achieving the goal that we want that makes this movement work. So those two things really have taken me with us during the training. Thank you very much. And I'm with you. I think that, you know, thinking about practically how to stop moving in silo and think about the root cause of issues is the only way to stop treating symptoms. So Frank, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure to speak to you. Thank you, Maggie, for hosting me and thank you to FDFG for allowing us to be listed and making sure that it's not because this is a hack. A lot of things that I've seen and I've learned as I run the academy, I'm going to interact with more new systems. So I'm trying to change how we work with facilitation, more engagement of community, getting to understand what really they would want. It has been an amazing experience and I know things are going to change. And what a pleasure it has been to be part of this. Thank you. Thank you so much. Take care.