From recognising health rights to realising labour protections? Sex work, ILOAIDS and the Decent Work Agenda in Ghana

Abstract

This paper examines recent evolutions in global development policy that link decent work, HIV and sex work—particularly through the ILO Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work—and considers the implications for migrant sex workers in Ghana. Drawing on original primary data gathered in 2020, namely interviews with grassroots NGOs based in Accra, the paper explores the conditions for and barriers to expanding rights-based sexual health frameworks to include the promotion and protection of sex workers’ labour rights. The paper finds that civil society actors face multiple barriers to expanding sexual health frameworks, which include Ghana’s prevailing socio-legal regime of prohibition and stigmatisation, the overwhelming focus of development funding on HIV, and the failure of existing policy efforts to address the political–economic determinants of migrant women’s experiences of labour exploitation in the sex sector. Theoretically, the paper contributes to the interdisciplinary literatures on commercial sex, gender, migration, and development policy by advancing a feminist political economy analysis of the constraints and opportunities for civil society actors seeking to advance sex workers’ rights within and beyond sexual health.