Women’s Network for Human Rights Advocacy (WONETHA) is an independent, non-partisan, non-governmental human rights advocacy organization led and founded by sex workers in 2008. WONETHA was founded to address the rampant discrimination in health care systems, social stigma and as well as advocate against punitive and restrictive legislation and policies that encourage violations of sex workers rights. We use health as a major entry point to advocate for rights of sex workers. That is- we provide health services to sex workers, push for programming that recognizes sex workers health needs, promote and protect rights of sex workers through access to primary justice, documentation of violations, awareness, building the capacity of sex workers, research and knowledge management. We work with partners to push for sex workers issues at the regional and international advocacy spaces. Download a documentation of GBV CASES_2021Download a documemtation of STRATEGIC PLAN 2022-2026Download a documemtation of Final WONETHA Uganda Research Report - July 2020
To promote the holistic wellbeing of adult female sex workers in Uganda through advocacy, research, empowerment and access to health and justice.
Our Slogan
The WONETHA Slogan is “Nothing about us without us.”
Our beneficiaries
The WONETHA Slogan is “Nothing about us without us.”
Who we influence and Partner with
We influence, partner and collaborate with: policy makers, law enforcers, government agencies, human rights organizations, women’s organizations, legal aid service providers, media platforms, traditional and religious leaders, regional and international human rights mechanisms and; CBOs, NGOs and networks of sex workers, health service providers, and donors that work on: access to justice, sexual and reproductive health and rights, HIV/AIDS and TB, abortion rights and sex workers rights.
Our Values
• Respect
• Confidentiality. • Transparency • Team work • Communication
What we do
WONETHA has five major outcome areas that are guided by our core values :
1. Health Service provision WONETHA addresses the health disparities for sex workers through direct provision of health information, commodities, testing services and referral to health care. We ensure that the health workers understand the health issues affecting sex workers and are able to skew services to those needs.
2. Paralegal support and primary justice WONETHA addresses violations of rights of sex workers by increasing access to justice through provision of first legal aid and referrals of cases to lawyers. We promote rights through awareness of human rights to ensure that sex workers understand and can defend their rights. We document these violations and ensure that the perpetrators of these violations are exposed and followed up.
3. Strengthening Capacities WONETHA strengthens the capacity of sex workers to improve their wellbeing. This is done through training them as peer educators and paralegals to take care of their own issues, economic empowerment to earn alternative income, movement building, supporting children of sex workers and rehabilitation for under age sex workers.
4. Knowledge Management and Advocacy WONETHA uses research and documentation as a tool to generate and manage knowledge for evidence-based advocacy. By doing this, WONETHA contributes to the knowledge base on issues affecting sex workers in Uganda. By working with partners, WONETHA pushes for reform in laws that affect sex workers and causes shifts in programming that benefits the lives of sex workers. WONETHA works with partners to cause shifts in attitudes of duty bearers in favour for the rights of sex workers.
5. Institutional building WONETHA strives to build a strong and well-grounded organisation, continuously learning, innovative, well positioned and sustainable to challenge violations of rights of sex workers. Strengthening the finance, monitoring and evaluation, governance systems, Human resources and sustained resources are the key priorities in WONETHA’s institutional building goal.
WONETHA Institutional Objectives:
To increase access and utilization of health services by sex workers
To conduct research to inform advocacy in order to influence change in policies, laws and practices to promote rights of sex workers
To promote access to justice in cases of violations of rights of sex workers in Uganda
To empower individual sex workers and groups to claim for their rights
To work with like-minded and strategic partners at the national and international level to promote the rights of sex workers
To strengthen the institutional capacity of WONETHA and its members to deliver on its mandate
