Current Institutional Affiliation
Fixed term contract Lecturer, Anthropology and Archaeology, University of South Africa

Award Information

Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa: Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Fellowship 2018
Institutional Affiliation (at time of award):
Anthropology and Archaeology, University of South Africa
Where Did we go Wrong? A Critical Exploration of Humanitarian Aid on the Sex Worker Communities of Gauteng, South Africa”

Humanitarian aid is generally taken at face value. Its letter and spirit have generally been beyond interrogation. In the same vein, its interventions have been assumed to be unqualified social good. The proposed research project seeks to critically look into humanitarian aid with focus on community intervention programmes whose aim is purported to be restoring the humanity of sex workers in the province of Gauteng, South Africa. The basis of the proposed research project is that humanitarian interventions are organized in a manner that negates interaction with the realities of the intended beneficiaries. In the case of the sex worker communities, intervention has been mainly characterized by aiding sex workers to live safer lives through protecting themselves against illnesses and diseases, mainly HIV, Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), and substance abuse awareness as well as how to deal with their everyday violent experiences. Despite these interventions, research shows that the situation remains the same. The proposed research seeks to interrogate the humanization of sex work within a system that assumes sex work as a natural occurrence that the world needs to adjust to.

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