Between Tensions and Opportunities:
Strengthening Partnerships Among Civil
Society and Sex Worker-led
Organizations in Kenya and Ethiopia.
Naomi van stapele, Getnet Tadele, Ida Sabelis, Bisrate
Markos , Emmy Kageha and Lorraine Nencel
ICASA 2015, Harare, Zimbabwe
Introduction

Part of larger project on economic empowerment of sex
workers in Kenya and Ethiopia.

A comparative analysis of two stakeholder mappings in Kenya
and Ethiopia.

Identify interactions between government agencies, NGOs
and sex worker-led organizations as strategic actors in
combating HIV/AIDS.

All groups consider more horizontal partnerships between
them as a crucial step for effective response to HIV/AIDS

In practice, such partnerships have yet to become fully
established.
Methods

The analysis is based on review of secondary sources and primary
data gathered from 30 government organizations, NGOs and sex
worker-led organizations in Kenya and Ethiopia from December
2014-February 2015.

The comparative analysis looks at possible tensions between
different positions of sex work by government, NGOs and sex
worker-led organizations and how these shape power relationships
between them.

Sex work is illegal in both Kenya and grey area in Ethiopia and is
regulated in completely different ways.

Hence, comparing both countries allows a better understanding of
the way different governance regimes of sex work enable or
obstruct potential partnerships.
CASE 1:KENYA
UNAIDS
USAID
GATES
Government: NACC
and NASCOP
NGO/HR: LVCT, ICRH-K,
SWOP, UHAI etc.
SW-led: KESWA, HOYMAS,
BHESP etc.
SACCO/CHAMA

Figure 1: Hierarchy of relationships and flow of funds between different
(levels of) organizations that engage with sex workers in Kenya.
Envisioned partnerships: a
gap
between theory and practice

current strategic aim of government
interventions is to move away from topdown approach to key population-driven
(i.e. bottom-up) interventions.

Discrepancy between strategic directions
and narratives and lack of veritable
change through action.
Barriers and their effects

One of the barriers is the divide within
government on sex work.

Tokenism: Sex workers are invited at the
decision-making table by government, but
when it is too late and they are not fully
involved.

This negatively affects health
interventions aimed to reach them.
Ethiopia

The 2009 CSO law prohibits Resident and
foreign NGOs not to work on human
rights or advocacy issues.
Ethiopia: Partnerships and barriers

Both the state and non-state actors take
sex work as a by-product of poverty, as
victims of social problems, and sex workers
need to be rehabilitated.

The abolitionist view of SW dominates
among government and NGO actors
engaging with SWs

Creates challenges on the way to initiating
meaningful dialogue and partnerships among
these actors and sex workers
Ethiopia: Partnerships and
barriers
There is clearly little or no room in this line of thinking for a

notion of empowerment of sex workers who continue to do
sex work.

There is also little room for equal partnerships, for victims
are to be saved and not to be approached as equal partners.

there are very few sex workers led organizations and those
that do exist are to a large extent invisible.

Sex workers-led organisations do not seem to be
represented in high level fora a that deal with HIV or other
related issues.
Conclusions and Recommendations

In Ethiopia, partnerships between government agencies, NGOs and
SWs are not aspired even in theory, let alone in action.

This has to do with the way sex work is considered in government
and Church discourses.

These two narratives take sex workers both as victims and sex
work as highly immoral.

SW in Kenya is considered immoral and criminal and SWs are
often arrested by the police

In Ethiopia victims are to be rescued and should not be arrested

In Kenya, there is more political space for donor-backed advocacy
challenging the current status quo
Conclusions and Recommendations

In both countries dominant framings of sex work prevented
meaningful partnerships that are highly needed to develop
and implement more effective health interventions.

One possible recommendation to solve such tensions is a
counter-narrative project, adapted to the different contexts
of Kenya and Ethiopia

that would engage all relevant stakeholders in a series of
meetings to discuss :
◦ dominant notions of sex work,
◦ make implicit and explicit assumptions about sex work
◦ where possible, make space for new notions of sex work based
on human rights.