Tucked away in a slum area in Mamprobi, in the heart of the capital of Ghana, Accra, about 15 minutes away from the Human Rights court is Women of Dignity Alliance (WODA). WODA plays a very important role in the lives of sex workers in that community and other slum areas in the capital. Sex work remains a profession that navigates a dangerous landscape, with sex workers constantly at high risk because they receive little to no societal or legal protections in many countries in Africa. Sex work is criminalised in most places on the continent. However, one would often find that in countries where it is illegal, it is still quite commonplace.

In Ghana, sex work is illegal but widespread. This has created a ‘black marketisation’ of sex work. Due to this, sex workers are vulnerable to abuse and have little to no recourse to justice or protection when their rights and freedoms are taken away. There is also an underlying prevalence of human trafficking and child prostitution, given fertile ground to thrive because of economic hardship. The stigma attached to sex work creates a general disregard for the lives and bodies of sex workers. In Ghana, they are robbed, abused and killed; and justice is difficult to get in a system that criminalises the work.

In such a climate, relief and advocacy for change are therefore spearheaded by sex workers themselves, community voices and activists. The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF)  is supporting WODA’s  resilient work for the protection of sex workers’ rights and freedoms. WODA is built on the ethos of creating a safe space and network for women in slum communities and sex workers in these communities, providing social support, access to sexual health and human rights  information, HIV testing and counselling, empowerment, skills building and vocational training to provide an alternative livelihood for the sex workers, should they need this.

Mamle* was arrested by police for sex work, robbed, and then set free. She discovered WODA during an outreach and became a member. She is now a project officer in the organisation, leads police sensitisation projects as part of WODA’S outreach initiatives, serving as a listening ear and resource to sex workers who visit the centre to report abuse. Today, due to these efforts, some police stations in the vicinity have appointed some of their police men and women as designated officials that sex workers can go to to report police abuse. In a separate case, a 15 year old girl found solace in the vocational training that WODA provides. Her attendance and assimilation into the empowerment, the space provides, led to the discovery that her mother had been sexually exploiting her, by selling her daughter for sex. The case was amplified and police have taken it up. As at the time of writing this article, she is graduating from her vocational training, in the hope that it will give her a livelihood.

“My Body Matters” & the AWDF Kasa! Initiative 

‘‘My Body Matters’ is a flagship project funded by Kasa! Initiative to address and reduce sexual violence in West Africa. The project is aimed at challenging the misconception amongst sex workers that they have no worth. Through counselling, community outreach projects, Theatre, radio drama and more, ‘My Body Matters’ aims to empower sex workers to understand that they have dignity, to learn to speak up for themselves in a dangerous landscape with this understanding and are entitled to all rights of protection.

The organisation was founded and is directed by Susan Dartey. Dartey grew up in Jamestown, an old township on the coast of Ghana, formerly known as British Accra. In her childhood, she saw a lot of abuse in her household, but there were no avenues to express what were jarring experiences for a young girl. As a child growing up in Jamestown, she says, you are admonished by adults not to speak, only endure.  Her mother had gone through the trauma of being trafficked into Accra.

In Junior High School, joining the theatre club opened up an avenue of expression for her that would be healing and light a fire in what will later become her community work. Through storytelling, a learner-centred approach, music, games  interaction, enactment and audience participation, Theatre was an exceptional medium for exploring difficult issues such as sexual abuse in the community.  Theatre provided that empathetic  space like no other to tell one’s story and to affect an audience, such that a push for communal change becomes off the audience’s own volition.

Theatre for Development is one of WODA’s flagship community outreach programmes within slum communities in big slum communities in Accra such as  Jamestown, Old Fadama, Railways, Chorkor, Labadi  and Circle, to disseminate messages, and to conscientise communities, the police, power players, community leaders, and more  about the social protections for sex workers, destigmatise sex work and end cycles of abuse and violence against women. Radio drama is also used to reach communities beyond the organisation’s reach, partnering with local radio stations in those communities to air radio drama sharing the stories of the women and encouraging discussions about the issues. Every performance is a sex worker’s story.

The center is open everyday for sex workers to walk in for social support, information and rehabilitation.

Societal Stigma 

Dartey reflects that most of the sex workers in the community have the perception that anything from sex work is not valuable. This translates into the perception that their bodies have no worth and they do not matter.

Society hammers in this misconception in various ways. Marash, recounts stories of sex workers who have been killed by clients who did not want to pay for services rendered; of sex workers who have  simply vanished; of sex workers preyed on for ritualistic purposes because of the prejudice that sex workers’ bodies have no worth; and as in her own case, are abused by police whose mandate is to protect.

Sex workers who are lesbians also find a safe space in WODA. In 2024, Ghana’s parliament passed the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, a draconian anti-lgbt bill criminalising the identity of being LGBT+ and associated sanctions in the community as a means of state crackdown on this community. The bill did not become law, however, the societal hatred and stigmatisation it ramped up remains a fixture with far reaching consequences in Ghanaian society because of the inevitable intersectionality of oppression. For example, with the parliamentary passage of the anti-LGBT bill, WODA being a space for only women, experienced a lot of threats due to a growing misconception in that community, that the space was a lesbian organisation. The organisation had to change locations.

Dartey, however, has a positive outlook on what the future holds after ten years of advocacy and movement for change.

After ten years of advocacy, Susan notes that there is a marked reduction in sex workers reporting cases of abuse. More sex workers in the community  have joined the organisation, taking up staff positions furthering the work of the organisation as community facilitators, project officers, and as trainers sensitising on issues of child trafficking, abuse of sex workers, rehabilitation and more.  As at the time of writing this article, another group in vocational training will be graduating. Many sex workers have found their voice – in  becoming aware of their inherent rights and dignity, in learning how to protect themselves, and in speaking up for themselves.

As Susan says quite aptly, “When a woman finds her voice, she feels safe, she can protect herself, and her dignity is respected.”

The Women of Dignity Alliance calls for the decriminalisation of sex work, and for social protections of sex workers to be put in place. Sex work is work. Sex workers’ dignity must be protected.

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Mamle* name has been changed for privacy and safety reasons.

This is a commissioned feature story by Nana Akosua Hanson, a Media Practitioner based in Ghana.