‘Ashawo suppose shine her eyes’: Female sex workers and sex work risks in Nigeria

Current efforts to advance the capacity of sex workers to recognize and successfully negotiate the risks in their work rarely privilege their own constructions of these risks. Yet current research shows that lay perspectives and notions are critical to the success and sustainability of health programmes. Drawing upon qualitative research with 127 sex workers in Aba, Nigeria, the present paper explores sex work risks as they are constructed, expressed, and acted upon by sex workers themselves. The sex workers were generally eloquent in expressing the idea that their work was particularly risky. They mentioned client violence and abuses, sexually transmitted infections, stigma and rejection, reduced prospects of marriage, police intimidation, and accelerated aging or physical degeneration as some of the risks in sex work. Sex workers pursued several different strategies in managing these risks, including setting boundaries for themselves, being choosy and selective about clients, using traditional medicine and charms, alcohol and drug use, and participation in religious activities. Results challenge mainstream medico-epidemiological notions that sex workers are unaware of the risks they are exposed to, and/or do nothing to address them. Many of the key elements for an effective risk prevention and management strategy are visible but will need to be coordinated into responsive programmes of intervention and action.