“Life has actually taught us it seems we can’t trust anyone anymore!” Violence and the marginalizing position of female sex workers during COVID-19 in Nigeria

Sex workers (SWs), specifically female sex workers (FSWs) represent one of the most vulnerable key populations of women that are disproportionately affected by government-mandated COVID-19 regulations and lockdowns globally. In Nigeria, female sex work is further complicated by the country's entrenched patriarchal value system where sex work is criminalized, and female sex workers experience increased violence specifically increased sexual/gender-based violence (S/GBV) discrimination, stigma, and marginalisation due to the intersection of their profession/livelihood and gender. The available evidence documented so far, proves the existence and high prevalence of the human rights violations and the increase violence against of FSWs under the government’s enforcement and implementation for COVID-19 regulations in Nigeria. Through a thematic analysis of the difficulties, struggles and experiences expressed by both FSWs and social development workers (SDWs) that continue to support, advocate and provide SRHR and S/GBV services for them during COVID-19, the objective of this research is to identify the key dynamics and structures that facilitates and justifies the increase of violence against female sex workers during lockdowns in order to understand how the government’s COVID-19 efforts actively deprioritizes FSWs marginalizing them further. In a time of high health precarity, the government’s prioritization of the pandemic response, on the basis to stopping the spread of the virus, and the high levels of gender inequality, the available evidence and literature highlight that with the legal, social and cultural frameworks around SW and the existing poor health and social infrastructures, addressing the increase of violence and human rights abuses against FSW has been actively deprioritized with the justification of the use of direct violence towards FSWs is in the name of curtailing the spread of the novel Coronavirus.