Yankho Mkwapatira & Liwonde Female Sex Workers Alliance (LIFESA)

In Machinga, Malawi, Yankho Mkwapatira, a sex worker and founder of the Liwonde Female Sex Workers Alliance (LIFESA) , is leading a powerful movement to protect and empower women in sex work. With support from our Giving Joy grant, Yankho and her team of 35 are tackling stigma, abuse, and unlawful arrests head-on.

With the grant, the organization joined forces with other civil society groups for a Solidarity Walk-in-Parade, challenging Liwonde Police Station to stop arresting female sex workers during their work. They also established and trained a 20-member Female Sex Workers Taskforce Committee to monitor, document, and respond to rights violations. This initiative has reached 110 female sex workers with human rights information and raised public legal awareness to prevent defilement, harassment, and abuse in Liwonde and Balaka townships.

The results have been remarkable. Since the start of the intervention, no new cases of rights violations have been reported, signaling a shift in police behavior, reduced physical abuse, and greater respect for the rights of female sex workers. The funding empowered Yankho Mkwapatira to engage law enforcement, sensitize communities, and create a protective network where sex workers can advocate for their own safety and dignity.

From this work, they have learned that sex workers, most of whom are women, face deep-rooted stigma and systemic abuse, despite there being no law in Malawi that criminalizes sex work itself. Police violence, abuse of power, and misuse of petty offence laws remain major issues. Without adequate resources, many violations go unreported and unpunished.

Yankho Mkwapatira envisions a future where sex workers are treated with dignity and equality, and dreams of one day creating a One-Stop Centre to support victims and document cases for long-term advocacy.

"We believe sex workers’ rights are women’s rights—and they must be respected and protected at all costs." – Yankho Mkwapatira