To Live Freely in This World by Chi Adanna Mgbako

The argument presented in the book, by both Mgbako and the activists she interviews, is that sex work should be regarded as legitimate work and decriminalised in order to secure sex workers from violence and violations of their rights.

Mgbako is a woman of Nigerian heritage, an Africanist, human rights law professor and advocate who works in solidarity with sex worker activists. In fact, Mgbako finds that no reliable data suggest that rehabilitation programmes in Africa, or elsewhere, succeed in either implementing alternative livelihoods or reducing violations of sex worker rights. Such rescuing may end up in deportation or leave sex workers more financially vulnerable. Mgbako pushes back against the dangerous notion that all sex workers want to be rescued from sex work, because at times those who want to rescue sex workers from sex work-for instance abolitionist, anti-trafficking saviours-end up being the biggest problem. To Live Freely in This World, which centres on the African sex worker movements fighting for decriminalisation of sex work, is thus highly topical, not only because it presents compelling arguments about the consequences of the illegality of sex work for people in the business, but also because it is built on the voices of the actual people involved: the sex workers. With the recent release of Amnesty International’s policy of decriminalisation of adult sex work, the topic of decriminalisation is as heated as ever. Three years earlier, the protest was a silent March, but now sex workers throughout Africa are no longer quiet. The introductory descriptions of the loud and fearless crowds stomping through the streets of Nairobi during the 17 December protest March in 2012, Footnote 1 carrying red umbrellas and rainbow-coloured flags, paint a symbolic picture of the developments that African sex worker movements have undergone over the last decade.

To Live Freely in This World by Chi Adanna Mgbako