Mgbako introduces readers to a diverse cast of women, men, and transgender people in the African sex industry who “support their families and pay their rent.” None of these individuals need rescuing from their work, as anti-prostitution advocates have suggested, but rather realization of their human rights, Mgbako argues. In her narrative, these workers are activists fighting to end the criminalization of sex work, which often leaves them bereft of justice, health care, and labor protection.

“The heart of the book is their stories, their understanding of their work, and their understanding of the human rights abuses” committed against them, Mgbako said of her debut, shaped from 160 interviews with sex workers she conducted across seven African countries. “It was important to me that the communities I was writing about felt the book was needed, could be helpful in their activism, and that I was writing in solidarity with them.”

The book stems from Mgbako’s work as Clinical Professor and Director of the Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic at Fordham Law School. She has worked with sex workers for nine years, the last three of which she also spent researching and writing the book.

Moralism weighs heavily on the discussion about sex workers and often silences their voices, Mgbako said, but her interviews with activists made it clear their struggle is for labor rights, access to healthcare, and freedom from violence and discrimination. Without decriminalization, such rights are not available. For instance, in many countries police frequently do not take sex workers seriously when they report a crime. More egregiously, police are many times perpetrators of violence toward the workers.

The narrative of To Live Freely In This World is important, Mgbako explained, “to capture the devastating human rights abuses sex workers are facing” and the stigmatization they face due to criminalization. The book also spotlights the grassroots activities of the movement: activists protesting on the street for their rights, going to parliament demanding change, handing out condoms, and providing legal assistance and health care services to people in the industry.

These examples, Mgbako said, combine to show the movement’s “vibrancy and beauty.” The book also includes photos of the diverse sex workers who were interviewed in order to make their stories more accessible. Because of the disproportionate number of LGBT people within the African sex industry, especially transgender women, the fight for sex worker rights intersects with the fight for LGBT rights in Africa, Mgbako said, though it is an intersecting struggle that does not receive much attention.

The book’s publication comes at a time when major global human rights and health organizations such as Amnesty International, the World Health Organization, and UNAIDS have announced support of efforts to decriminalize sex work. Backed by these encouraging developments, Mgbako will continue her own activism to work in solidarity with more sex workers fighting for their rights.

This semester, she and a group of students from the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice performed a human rights training workshop in Mauritius for African sex worker activists from throughout the continent. Next semester, she will work with many of the activists featured in the book to write human rights petitions, including one to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

“I hope the book helps center the discussion of sex work on the lived experiences of sex workers within the industry in Africa and throughout the world fighting for their human rights,” Mgbako said.

To Live Freely In This World is available on the NYU Press website now and on Amazon beginning Jan. 8. On Jan. 26, the Leitner Center will host a book launch.

–Ray Legendre

Brian Honermann, Fordham Law School’s first recipient of the James E. Tolan Fellowship in International Human Rights, has come a long way since his high school days, when he worked on behalf of a homeless food pantry. As an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Honermann co-owned a coffee shop that practiced Fair Trade sales, and was active in anti-sweatshop campaigning. His involvement in global activism while at college influenced his decision to attend Fordham Law School and to combine law with human rights advocacy.

“Human rights had always been an area I’d thought about,” said the 2007 Law School graduate, who hails from Mankato, Minn. “It’s understanding human development around the world, and making sure that it happens—as students, consumers, lawyers—as advocates.”

As a Tolan Fellow, Honermann will travel to Johannesburg, South Africa, in September to spend a year working on the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the AIDS Law Project to help secure HIV/AIDS treatment for underrepresented populations. The award, which falls under the umbrella of the school’s Crowley Program in International Human Rights, is named in honor of James Tolan, LL.B. (FCRH ’59, LAW ’62), senior counsel at Dechert LLP. The award sponsors one Fordham Law School graduate annually for his or her work with an international human rights organization and allows its recipient to choose the organization and country of destination.

Honermann chose South Africa because he spent last summer in Cape Town as a 2006 Crowley Scholar. He helped file suit on behalf of 15 HIV-positive prisoners who were not receiving anti-retroviral treatment, and co-wrote an $11 million Global Fund proposal. He is already familiar with the nation and its courts.

“My goal is to arrive, hit the ground running, and do as much good in a year as I possibly can,” he said. “My experience from last year will allow me to do more than if I went to someplace I’d never been before, and had to take the time to get up to speed.”

On a recent trip to New Orleans with the Student Hurricane Network, Honermann and a group of Fordham Law students helped displaced resident homeowners, who had no proper legal titles to their lost or damaged homes, secure federal funding. That situation is an example, he said, of how too many poor people—up to 80 percent globally—live outside of “the Rule of Law” that is ostensibly designed to benefit those very people.

“Without a formal title, a house is dead capital,” he said. “If we look at where the bulk of development funds go, we really don’t get it to those people who need the most access to justice. As lawyers, we have to find the way to do that.”

Following graduation, Honermann will spend the summer in New York City studying for the New York State Bar Exam and seeing friends. It will be his first summer in New York City. In addition to his 2006 internship in South Africa, Honermann spent a summer as a legal intern for Grupo Pela Vidda, an HIV/AIDS activist organization in Brazil, in 2005.

“When we think of the [world’s] enormous problems, some of us might think ‘but what can I do?’ it’s so immense,” he said. “But the fact is, as lawyers, we can do a lot if we have the courage to do so.”

– Janet Sassi