Chi Mgbako and her book To Live Freely in This World were featured in a Q&A in the Washington Post.
KYD: Your book is nonstandard for an academic text in that it features very long narratives told by the research subjects themselves. Why did you write it in this way?
CAM: When the mainstream media highlights sex work, there’s rarely mention of the fact that this decades-long global movement for sex workers’ rights exists, even though in terms of sheer geographic diversity, it’s one of the largest and most dynamic labor rights movements in the world.
By making sex workers’ voices the heart of my book, I’m repudiating this silencing. And by focusing on African sex worker activists specifically, I’m also responding to anti-prostitution advocates who incorrectly portray the global sex workers’ rights movement as dominated by Western, white, middle-class, cisgender women in the sex industry as a way of dismissing the movement as “non-representative.” Tell that to male sex worker activists in Kenya or to transgender female sex worker activists in Namibia or to street-based sex worker activists in Uganda.
The global sex workers’ rights movement is one of the most diverse and inclusive social justice movements in the world, comprising sex workers of various races, ethnicities, nationalities, sexual orientations, gender identities and classes. Some of the most vibrant sex worker activism is happening in the Global South — on the streets of Nairobi where hundreds of sex workers often protest en masse, in the halls of the South African Parliament where sex worker activists have pursued a law reform campaign aimed at decriminalizing sex work, on the radios and in the newspapers in Namibia where sex worker activists often engage the media to educate the public about the state-sanctioned violence sex workers face.
By weaving narratives from my research subjects throughout the book, I’m trying to underscore the primacy of the rich voices and experiences of sex worker activists that for too long have been disregarded in sex work law and policy discussions. Their voices must be at the center.