Proud Nigerian prostitutes protest for sex
workers right in Lagos recently with Patoo
Abraham pictured above leading the
protest.Find Al Jazeera report below
(really Interesting)
Patoo Abraham has become famous
for fighting for the rights of
prostitutes, but what she - and those
she is trying to help - do to make a
living is illegal and frowned upon by
many in the country.
Abraham is not only proud of her
profession but is also campaigning to
ensure that prostitution is legalised
and that sex workers are respected in
Africa's most populous country.
The 48-year-old has led a couple of
protests in Lagos, Nigeria's
commercial capital, demanding the
rights of prostitutes in a country
where sex vendors suffer physical
harm at the hands of their punters.
Continue Reading...
Under the auspices of different
organisations, scores of prostitutes
marched on the streets of Lagos, chanting
provocative slogans.
This boldness is unprecedented, and the
protesters carried their signature red
umbrellas and T-shirts with the
inscription "Sex work is work, we need
our rights."
"We are tired of dying in silence,"
Abraham, who heads the Nigerian chapter
of African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA),
told Al Jazeera. "We want to be able to
practise our profession with pride like
every other person. We want an end to
name-calling and stigmatisation. We are
sex workers and not asawo [a Yoruba
derogatory name for prostitutes]."
Sex work, said Abraham, is normal work
and that there are "sex workers
everywhere under one form of disguise or
the other". "[The] government should stop
criminalising our work," said the woman
who is also the president of the Women of
Power Initiative (WOPI), a non-
governmental organisation established to
advance the cause of sex work in Nigeria.
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