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Home Tag From Despair to Dignity: Supporting Migrant and Refugee Sex Workers in Uganda

From Despair to Dignity: Supporting Migrant and Refugee Sex Workers in Uganda

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September 30, 2025 by Tanyanika Samuels

From Despair to Dignity: Supporting Migrant and Refugee Sex Workers in Uganda

On the streets skirting refugee camps across Uganda, sex workers eke out a living on the margins of legality; their very profession and immigration status marking them for harassment, arrest, and detention. Within this community, lesbian, bisexual and queer women have become particularly vulnerable after Uganda’s recent passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, a draconian law that criminalizes homosexuality, making some offences …

July 2, 2025 by AJWS Human Rights Expert in East Africa

How we fight fundamentalist “family values” movements in Africa — and how you can, too

To the unwavering American donors and AJWS community members, I’m writing you from my home in Uganda with an important message. I’m one of AJWS’s human rights experts here in East Africa, supporting our partners fighting for the sexual health and rights of women, girls and LGBTQI+ people. For my security (and the continuation of …

February 29, 2024 by Jamie Diamond

After fleeing South Sudan, refugees begin again in Uganda — with the help of RICE West Nile

After Keji lost her parents to the violent, ongoing conflict in South Sudan, she and her siblings fled to Arua, Uganda — a city near the border that has become a major hub for refugees looking for a better life. But Keji and her brothers and sisters needed help rebuilding their lives after losing everything. …

June 7, 2023

Why Uganda’s Anti-LGBTQ Law Is Bad for Africa

February 16, 2022 by Sostine Namanya

I saw COP26 fail firsthand—here’s what we need for climate justice

Late last year, I flew from my home in Uganda to Scotland to attend the Conference of Parties (COP26), an annual United Nations meeting in which countries around the world discuss ways to slow the onset of global climate change. I attended with support from AJWS, and I was one of the few women, one …

Dvar Tzedek

November 18, 2013 | 5774

Vayeshev

Anu Mokal was four months pregnant the night policemen brutally assaulted her at a bus stop in Satara, India. They beat her so severely that she suffered a miscarriage. When she later filed a complaint against them, no investigation took place, despite the presence of witnesses. Why? Because she was a sex worker, and the policemen—who had charged her with soliciting clients at the bus stop—were just ‘doing their job.’

November 12, 2012 | 5773

Toldot

Parashat Toldot contains one of the Torah’s most troubling and dramatic scenes of deception: At his mother Rebecca’s urging, Jacob covers his arms and neck with animal skin, disguising himself as his hairier brother Esau in order to fool their aging, blind father into giving Jacob the blessing of the first born. When Esau returns and the ruse is up, the emotional consequences of the deception become clear. Esau cries a bitter cry “ad me’od—to the utmost” and Isaac too trembles violently “ad me’od.” Isaac is so shaken by the trickery that, according to Midrash Aggadah quoting Rabbi Chama bar Chanina, “This trembling was even greater than his trembling when he was on the altar [at the Binding of Isaac].”

May 7, 2012 | 5772

Emor

We are pleased to welcome guest writer, Sarah Mulhern, program associate at American Jewish World Service. Parshat Emor closes with one of the most famous and controversial pronouncements in the Torah: If anyone maims his fellow, as he has done so shall it be done to him; fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for …

January 2, 2012 | 5772

Vayechi

Following the burial of their father Jacob in Parshat Vayechi, Joseph’s brothers worry aloud: “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us!?”[1] Despite the good grace Joseph had shown them upon their reunification, the debt they owe him for having sold him into slavery so many years prior still lingers. The eleven brothers feel …

November 22, 2010 | 5771

Vayeshev

Over and over in the Torah, widows are singled out as a group meriting special protection by God. Along with the stranger and the orphan, the widow is recognized as an especially vulnerable member of society.[1] Tamar’s story, as told in Parshat Vayeshev, can help us understand why the Torah focuses specifically on the widow, …